Dixie Does ...BLANK!

First off... I had beignets for breakfast. Need I explain why I'm such a fabulous mood?

UPDATE: Thanks to my Southern Soul Sister Summer (S much?) for explaining in the comments how to properly pronounce beignets!

Secondly, I'm getting my dixie-lovin' booty on the proverbial bandwagon and doing the lovely Lauren's Fill In the Blank Friday. Eeee! So excited...

1. If I could medal in an Olympic event it would be something from the Summer Olympics. The cold-weather boycott is back up and running - who wants to practice in the cold all day? Maybe I could be a gymnast or a diver - I'd like to fly through the air.

2. If I was stranded on a deserted island I'd take a handsome twangy manly boy to get on that man stuff, my Olliekins, my cameras, and a sketchbook... oh and a boat?

3. Creepers & Crowds are my most irrational fear.

4. I'd rather sweat everyday, than freeze everyday. ((betcha didn't see that one coming did ya?))

5. I am completely and utterly excited about my 3 day weekend of productivity ahead.

6. I should really be listening to an upbeat mix-tape to complement my great "It's Friday, Biatches!" mood.

7. One of my favorite things in all the world is hanging out with family on the holidays - when everyone's all worked up and got their funny pants on. Everyone gets so animated and tells hilarious stories until we're all out of breath from laughing so hard.

Lost Teeth....

Yesterday, I went home with every intention of catching up on my blog design and writing a few posty-posts for you kids as I watched The Sing-Off.

Well. theres only one thing that could have deterred me - one thing that could make me forget about the craploads of stuff I have to do before Christmas....

That's right.
Crawfish.

We ended up with 25+ lbs of crawfish on our table... SPICY pleaaase!

We literally ate every last one! Jane's never lets us down.

Bruce Bruce getting pose-y with his Miller Lite

The aftermath... a few hours later.

Seriously y'all. Nothing can compare to an evening like last night. Just sitting around with family.

If I'm being modest and all (haha), I'd say the best part about us is our sense of humor - or at least the fact that we can bring each other to tears laughing.

We somehow got on the subject of the show Hoarders, and how a lady in New Orleans lost her teeth in the crazy-disheveled house of hers. At the end of the cleaning, they found the top half of her dentures, but never found the bottoms!

My dad was rolling laughing, not because that in itself made him laugh, but because it brought him to the best story of the night about how...

One day his dad was hunting in the woods near their house, and he sneezed. Next thing you knew, his teeth had flown out of his mouth... Everyone searched the woods around him for a good while, but no one ever found his teeth...

Spicy Crawfish. Cold Beer. Great Company. & Even Better Conversation.
My Wednesday night was EPIC.
How about yours?

Little Thing 35

Satisfying Friday night's envie (it's my goal to impart a little Cajun vocab on y'all) for some boiled crawfish with my favorite seafood place, Jane's Seafood.

Magee's Landing

Remember how I escaped away to Lake Fausse Point for Thanksgiving? Well as the days went on, my family of 60 or so (you think I'm kidding... I'm not.) dwindled down to a few of my favorite ladies - my mum, her two sisters, and her brothers wife. They always joke that I'm allowed to hang out with them because I don't have any baggage like my cousins *cough*kids*cough* But in all seriousness, I adore the time I spend with them.

Best part? They're not ones to just sit around and do nothing.

Case in point: The Saturday after Thanksgiving, my mum, Aunt Debi, & I got up early and walked almost 4 & 1/2 miles in nature trails, and still weren't wiped out. So we went back to the cabin, rounded up the last two girls and set out for the boat landing.

We made our way up the Levee towards Henderson, and found our selves doing lunch at one of my favorite places - Magee's Landing!

Here's a few photos from our impromptu lunch date:

Kayaks out in front of the landing


I just love their bright hand painted signage.


Lookie a little crawfish to match Gaston up on my header!


This one is my favorite.... I can still feel the sunshine

I had to tell me aunts to keep their clothes on!


Yes. Dead Alligator. On the coffee bar. Inside the restaurant.


View from our table


What to get.... What to get...Decisions!


You can't tell, but like the vultures we are, we noticed those people were having boiled crawfish (and we wondered if they were big...and easy to peel...and well seasoned)


Another view...couldn't help myself


Yes mon chere'.... those are alligator shaped french fries. Supposedly copyrighted - Magee's is the only place you can get them!


Kind of dark - Trucks backed up on the levee


Back it uppppp


A teaser as to what came next.....

Feelin' Jazzzzzy...

Woahhhhh, nah.

What the.....?

A new layout?

Oh yeaaaah.

I was in desperate need for a change. I went with a look that was bold, simple, and BIG. My last layout had me feeling congested and blah. So welcome to the latest look of Dixie Lust - something inspired by the fact that Crawfish Season is herrrrre (Sure they're still small and hard to peel right now, but they're here nonetheless).

And don't worry if you're not quite sure what the header above means.

It's not dirty, but it sure is messy.

Come down here and we'll show you how it's done.

Fu Man Roux

I've gone ahead and entered the Stache Contest over at B is for Brown.

This is my submission - a Cajun 'Stache that goes by the name of the Fu Man Roux.

Here's what I sent in with my entry:

"I came up with the idea thinking about how you always go out to dinner here and there's some crazy Cajun rocking a fantastic stache but as he's chowing down on all the delish Cajun food, bits and pieces get stuck in his stache (and beard, and I once even witness someone get crab shells in their bushy eyebrows! ouch!)... so in my stache creation, I tried to cram in all the yummy bits from our food: crabs, crawfish, gator, Tony's, Tabasco, file', rice, and of course red beans on to my favorite 'stache style - the fu man chu!"

Ça C'est Bon!

*cough*Let's pretend I didn't disappear into the murky emotional abyss for an entire week*cough*

Boudin Cook-Off

Parc Sans Souci

Lafayette, LA

October 17, 2009

The little illustration is slightly disturbing no?

Some sort of smoked boudin - so delish!

MTher in heaven...

Full of Boudin? Photo Op!

Boudin Eating Contest contestants

The third guy from the left is the one who eventually spews it

The lone lady...

Keep your eye on the kid in the bucket hat...

annnd he wins it! 6 links of boudin in about 5 minutes

To further prove his boudin-osity, he jumped around seconds after eating 6 links of boudin

The creepy illustration one more time - just for good measure.

GP: A Little Taste of Louisiana...in the City

Happy Friday lovelies! I hope everyone has a fabulous end to their week... Today I'm on the road to Birmingham and I couldn't be more excited - not only because of the trip, but today is the day that I have THE Summer from B is For Brown guest posting on my little blog. If I could, I would take her blog to Junior/Senior Prom and write about it in my gurnal (that's a girly journal - I'm so against "diary") as I doodled little hearts inside the B's. I adore it that much. Last week, Summer even gave me the honor of doing my first ever guest post. I hate to seem so cheesy, but daily I'm so amazed that I could have met someone so genuinely sweet and caring through this little blog. I tell her we're kindred spirits with our Louisiana Girl roots, our Ollies, and our slightly disturbing love of the 'stache. She says the word "kindred" gives her goosebumps. And that right there makes me smile.

---

Hello gang. Quick intro: I am Summer from B is for Brown. I know some of you and for the ones I don't know, please introduce yourself to me. I would love to make some new blog friends and follow new blogs.

Now onto the good stuff: My dear friend, Kora B. asked me to guest post for her and well, I am beyond honored. I am jumping up and down like I ate too much blackened catfish, had a few too many hurricanes (no boobies will be shown here) and got my toes nibbled by some La. gators swimming in the Atchafalaya River! I am thrilled. Can you tell? ;)

I decided to talk a little about Cajun things you can find in NYC. I am originally from the great state of Louisiana and miss it on a daily basis. When you are missing home you need to seek out the comforts from there to make you smile again. At least I have to do that. So, let's get started...

Some Cajun Restaurants I Frequent:

The Delta Grill - They serve Abita beer. 'Nuf said! They also have a killer blackened catfish platter.

Acme - Crab cake po-boy is to die for!

Great Jones Cafe - Cutest place in the world! Andouille Omelet and Crescent City Smothered Eggs = yummy! And wash everything down with a Cajun Mary.

Mara's Homemade - Gator Bites and Crabmeat Stuffed Mushrooms are delish. However, I found that one of the owners was not very friendly at all. Plus I think they hail from Memphis. I hate giving a bad review, but when I walk into what is supposed to be a Louisiana place in NYC, I want to feel like I am in Louisiana and we don't have attitude. However, they did decorate it very well!

Two Boots Pizza - They have a pizza called The Dude which is a cajun, bacon cheeseburger pie: tasso, ground beef, cheddar & mozzarella and the Bayou Beast which consists of bbq shrimp, crawfish, andouille, jalapenos, & mozzarella.

1.two boots,

2. Great Jones Menu,

3. Great Jones,

4. Acme c/o Grub Street

Some things LSU:

LSU NYC/NJ Alumni Association - This chapter brings the South together in the Big Apple. We gather at Legends Bar to watch the football games and drink and eat lots. They also host an annual crawfish boil, usually in July. The crawfish are driven up from Baton Rouge, so we get the good stuff!

A dollar store on the Upper East Side - MCW @ Saving the Best for Last told me that she saw LSU gear in the window of a $ store here in NYC. I cannot believe it and feel I need to take a field trip to find this place!

A Louisiana style hotel:

The French Quarters NY - No one I know has stayed here when visiting the city but I have heard some great things about it.

1.Flaming Bananas Foster at The Delta Grill,

2. The French Quarters NYC

An old Cajun jazz place (no longer in business):

The Cajun: Jazz! - I am so sorry that this place closed down. It was such fun to go there on a weekend night!

I should add that I carry a fleur de lis totebag everywhere, so I am constantly bringing Louisiana everywhere I go in the NYC! Does that count??? Thanks for reading!

Laisezz le bon temps rouler,

Summer B.

[KB: &&&&& Then Sum Sum sent me this little bit & asked me to add it to her post...How could I say no? Flattery gets you everywhere bebes.]

What I think of Kora B:

she is beyond awesome.

i love how she takes pics of her food like i do.

she has fantastic taste.

i love and appreciate her "little thing" posts.

she has a love of anything & everything vintage.

she loves photography and has a great eye for it.

she is one talented techie (& i think dorky is the new black).

she supports local artists.

she knows just about everything.

that face of hers: i mean, could she be any more adorable?! i think not.

Little Thing 19

The first taste of fall - as in my first bowl of gumbo.

(Is it odd that there isn't a single good picture of a gumbo on the internet? - I don't think I'd eat half of whats in these photos!)

Also - just a little something that doesn't make me smile - dropping my beloved iPhone into the aforementioned bowl of gumbo.

Did Someone Say Smoked Meat?

Urban Spoon has done me proud again. My fabulous new hair (more on this later) and I are making our way to Johnson's Boucaniere today for lunch... I don't even need to cross my fingers. I just know it's going to be gooood.

Thank You Urban Spoon...

You're probably sick of the Gentleman Caller coverage and you're wondering to yourself "Hey Kora...Where's the good stuff?" Well, maybe not. But I am. I've been a little skimpy on the posts the past 2 or 3 weeks. I've been trying to find my rhythm in this whole blogging thing (seeing as how this is the first blog that I've decided to keep up with) and trying to come up with some sort of layout that doesn't bore me / give me a headache. In short, I've just been trying to figure out how to make this blog "me." I've got a lot coming your way, so hopefully all goes smoothly. Advice and pointers are always welcome, especially from those of you who have been doing this a while. I'm always curious about how/why you guys blog.

So while I've skipped a few "Friday Lunch" sections, I'm back in the game. This week I was in the mood to show you guys something aside from my usual (Blue Agave, Zoe's, Pizzeria Venti) so I downloaded the Urban Spoon app on my new iPhone. I've seen it on commercials and I figured it be perfect for me since I find myself going to the same old places over and over again. Yesterday after I downloaded the app, I handed the phone over to Lyla and let her give it a shake. We shook it a couple times and it finally landed on a place we had never heard of, Pops Black Pot. We used the "Map It" function and realized it was just around the corner. No idea how we hadn't found this place before....

You guys have no idea how excited we get at the thought of a good Friday lunch. Its a little bit like the thought of Christmas morning for a 5 year old...or in the case of Marguerite, the thought of a gallon of icy cold margaritas.

Click here to see more photos from our lunch at Pops Black Pot

Lunch was absolutely fabulous. Quick, friendly service (seriously, the two girls at the counter were as sweet as can be! We even chatted about the wonder of Urban Spoon.) & yummy, well seasoned, home-cooked food.

I doubt this place is new to some of you who are well informed of the subject of great local eateries, but it was a welcome surprise to my week. If you haven't been, you need to get out there and try it!

PS. For those of you who don't have an iPhone, I've put an Urban Spoon widget on the sidebar to the left. Try it out, and see what you can come up with. And if you're feeling adventures (or hungry), go have dinner there and tell me how it is!