New Orleans Food in Pictures

I won't be able to provide my weekly recap of Top Chef Canada on time this week seeing as I'm not in Canada.  Foiled again!  In the meantime, since I'm here in New Orleans I thought it only appropriate to share some culinary-type photos with you that I've taken on past trips here.  If I could exist on Beignets alone I'd be a happy girl.

Chefs on a smoke break, 2008

Coffee and Chicory at Court of the Two Sisters, 2011

Cafe du Monde Beignets, 2010 

Eggs Benny Po Boy at Stanley, 2011

Hurricane at The Old Coffee Pot, 2011

Red Beans and Rice at The Old Coffee Pot, 2011

Try this at home!

While we were in Montreal, almost a month back now, we took an afternoon to walk through the old part of the city, taking pictures and enjoying the quiet that you experience when it's the middle of the work week and everyone else is trapped in the office. We happened upon this cute lemonade stand and it was getting pretty warm, so I thought I'd see if I could manage to order one in my mangled franglais.

When the sweet girl working the stand asked me, in her heavily accented english, if I wanted a handful of fresh mint in my lemonade, you have to know I was all "that is the most brilliant idea I've ever heard!" in my head, even if all I could muster up was "oui".


The beauty of this idea is in it's simplicity. A handful of fresh mint, blended into a glass of homemade lemonade and poured over ice. The mint cuts the sweetness of lemonade, making it that more refreshing. For those of you that are devotees of the mojito it is reminiscent of one, but it's more intense somehow, and I think more delicious. Try making one at home. And then try making one at home and adding Vodka. That's my plan, anyway.