Palm & Pine

Tracie had told me that she had had a good dinner at Palm & Pine earlier in the conference.  I always appreciate a recommendation, and a glance at the menu online suggested that I would be happy there.  So when my meetings ended on Monday, I decided to just enjoy a dinner by myself at the bar there.  I got there shortly after opening and parked myself.

It wasn't too far from the hotel, so it was a nice little walk over.  The place wasn't too busy that early.  It was loud.  Interesting music, as far back in the 80s as Asia, of all things.  I read news and such on my phone and sipped my first drink (essentially a variation on a New York sour). 

I was almost done it when the sticky grilled rib tips came out. 

Yep, sticky.  Also, tasty.  And a nice, little heat to them.  I finished my drink, ordered another, the House of the Raisin Sun (I didn't get the name of the first, alas, and I cannot find it online). 

The corn babies came out,

and I started on them.  Then I nursed the (not as sweet as I thought it might be) second cocktail a loooong while.  The restaurant lagged a little, I have to say.  Small kitchen, they were busy, but the third item (from the small bites menu) I ordered was the corner store crudo. 

I read, and sipped carefully, and waited.  Finally, it came.  The crudo was tasty, truly, but wow, three small bites and two cocktails, and that was almost an hour and a half.  I paid up politely and left.

I appreciated Tracie's recommendation, to be sure, but I am glad I wasn't ravenous.  I'd go back, though - good food and interesting drinks.  Next conference, perhaps.

fog

Oh man.  This photo is from early Monday morning.  That fog!  It lifted later, but remained cloudy all day.  This will post Tuesday, and I hope that when it does post, I am back home with Conrad and Van and Olive in Pasadena.  Fingers crossed.  I need to make it home for my vacation on Thursday!

two Peters are better than one

I am not the only Peter out there, you know.  Shocking, yes, but believe me.  There are others.

My favourite other Peter and I had dinner last night.  We've seen plenty of each other at conference these past days, but it was terrific to get together and just have the two of us enjoy food and gossip about everyone else.  I exaggerate a little, only a little.  Certainly, we enjoyed food!

Peter and I hopped in a car and headed to a neighbourhood away from where I normally get whilst in New Orleans.  Our destination:  Toups' Meatery. 

Isaac Toups was a contestant several years back on Top Chef.  He was kind of fun, and he did win Restaurant Wars, though I admit that I rolled my eyes at the conversation he had with his wife on one episode where they talked about him making sure he didn't come home all Californian or something, as if New Orleans is all and only good and California has nothing of merit to offer.  No matter.  I'd been curious to try his food, so Peter and I set off to enjoy a meal there.

Cocktails first.  I had the Sloe Poke,

and after Peter tried it, he had that as his second dish.  We had some fried turkey necks,

pickles,

and cornbread

to start with.  And you know, those turkey necks were pretty freakin' awesome.  And plenty of food.  We should have stopped with those three items, but no, we underestimated portions and - curious for two generously-proportioned gentlemen - overestimated our appetites.  Out came my lamb neck

(necks were a theme, I guess), and oh, yep.  A lot.  No photo of the brownie we shared (it was fine, maybe a little dry), but um, yeah, we had dessert.  I also had a cocktail of pork fat washed bourbon, and that was fine, but the Sloe Poke was better.

I woke up this morning remembering that I don't usually eat that much food, let alone that much rich red meat.  Gosh.  My kingdom for a cauliflower or a big stalk of broccoli.

But in the end, hooray for seeing Peter!  I'm looking forward to the next time.

oh, so you think I'm actually seeing New Orleans?

Look, here's the truth:  when I go to ALA conferences, I do not get out much, I do not see much.  And when I do, it's in passing.  I spend so much time at the convention center

and the main conference hotel and seldom get anywhere else.

I laugh.  I mean, yes, I get to travel and accrue miles and have great meals and see friends.  But truthfully?  That's all.  Or, "all".

My rough life, right?  But I'm not here in New Orleans on tours and visits to attractions.  I barely see any conference city.  I had dinner tonight about three miles from the hotel, and I think that's the farthest afield I've ever been from the main conference facilities.

I have had time in the past to walk a little, and to take some photos.  I may yet.  But for now, I've got some lovely views from the hotel (check out the sunrise!),

and a quiet morning on Canal Street,

and, um, yeah.

But if you like, I can take more photos of the convention center!

first NOLA dinner of the trip

Alright, alright.  I admit it.  I get a little annoyed that NOLA (the city as an anthropomorphized entity and the people in various media who are from it or promote it) seems to think that it's the best of all, that its food is so much better than everywhere else in the US.  Oh, come on.  As if New York or Chicago or Los Angeles or even Seattle or DC or Philadelphia and more don't have amazing food and a rich food culture.  My eyes, they roll.

But yes, there is fine food here.  Plenty of it.  So no, I am NOT disparaging the food here in the slightest.  I just want it to get off its metaphoric high horse.

Friday night was a good dinner out with my friends Andrew and Ed and their wives.  No photos of them all, sorry.  But photos of food!  And worthwhile.  Ed had booked us at La Petite Grocery

(and man, does that make me think about French as a language), and he was so right.  I loved what I saw of the menu beforehand, and the reality came through.  Good cocktails.  I didn't get a shot of the blue crab (sorry east coast and Gulf coast people, but your crab is fine and Dungeness is so much better - I will not be convinced otherwise) beignets that we shared, but yum!  I had rabbit for dinner,

and oh, it's been so long since I had that.  Satisfying.  I loved the dessert as well, a rice pudding cake of sorts with orange in a few guises.

First night in New Orleans, and yep, dining very well.

I made it to New Orleans

Dinnertime on Thursday, after two flights and a not-as-long-as-I-think-it-was cab ride, I made it to my hotel in New Orleans.  I think I was last here for conference in 2018.  A good conference, but also, ugh.  I had just lost an election in the association, and I had a lot of sympathy to deal with.  Well-meaning, I know, and thank you everyone.  But it was a lot to have to process every day, I admit.

No matter.  I made it here.  A nice corner suite at the Marriott, and some great views from it.  More to come, I swear!  But for now, here is a glimpse of Louisiana.

ALA folks, hard at work, fabulous

I had to put that last part of the post title in there given the outfits that certain people were sporting.

;-)

I don't talk much about professional activities or my workplace on this blog. I think I wouldn't write a blog if I had to write about the things I spend several hours a day or more paid to do instead of the things I spend the rest of the time enjoying or daydreaming about. Truthfully, there are others out there who have given librarianship and ALA better thought. Find them, and reflect as you will. Try Lauren, just for starters.

A few people at this conference asked me if Conrad was with me. No, he wasn't, and it's unlikely he will be with me at conferences in the future. No, don't despair: all is more than well between us. No, we simply realized that conference, no matter how much we may like the host city, is not a place for him and me time. It's a place for my time with the librarians I've connected with over the years, and drawing Conrad into that world is not easily done. It's enough, I hope, that I call and text him several times a day and update him in such exhaustive detail that hanging up is surely a welcome relief to him.

I now sit on Council at ALA, this time at the very back in the Social Media Trouble Makers corner, as Aaron put it. While there, I am reading documents, listening to reports, following debate, occasionally venturing to a microphone to contribute, and tweeting and Flickring and FBing and e-mailing all in hopes of pushing some sense of the richness of conference activity out to people who might be interested.

Good people at ALA, and I wish I had photos of more. I have at least some, though, and not just from the Council chambers. Wandering the exhibits, I bumped into others:

Aaron
Kate
Matt and Peter (with me!)
Bobbi, Courtney, Alexia (plus shoes!)

Courtney, again
Dale
Bobbi
Gina
Aaron
the aforementioned Lauren
Nanette (ALA staff - those staffers really do so much for us)
Dale (and TK - yes, lots of time spent hanging out with him this conference)
Jodie and Courtney

And finally, the crew of us trying hard not to see, hear, nor speak evil...

best things I ate in NOLA

I'm going to say this: I dined well in New Orleans, but I was not blown away.

A case of going to the wrong restaurants? A case of choosing the wrong items? A case of needing to eat pork products to fully appreciate the cuisine here? I don't know. But I don't write this blog to disparage things (not often, at least). I prefer very much to celebrate instead. As I sit here watching Federer-Tsonga, a list of the ten things I ate while in NOLA that I would happily eat again. Oh wait, some of them I did go back for!

;-)

Grilled marinated artichokes at Rambla. I really wish I knew more about this restaurant. It's a hotel restaurant, it has vegetarian options, the food is quite good, the space is great for groups to gather. Why was it so very empty both times we went there? Ah well. We dined there twice, and this was a winner.

Even better at Rambla? The special: butternut squash gnudi. Fried crisp on the outside, creamy smooth inside. Only $5. Just yum.

And before we leave Rambla, the spiced Marcona almonds. Yes, I could see sitting around with these and some fino some lazy evening.

The first dinner in NOLA, TK and I wandered nearby to Capdeville. A loud little place, but possibly the friendliest service we had in NOLA (and I have to echo something I read on Twitter - for a town that thrives on tourism, NOLA does not have particularly good or polished restaurant service). Anyway, Capdeville proved to be excellent for two items, one of which I didn't get a good photo of in the dim light, the bread pudding. Topped with brûléed bananas and served with a rum caramel sauce, it was good enough that TK and I joked half-seriously about nightcapping with it on at least one other evening. The other item was our entree, crispy-skin salmon on a salad of curried lentils. $15? A steal, a delicious steal.

I had dinner alone last night, sitting at the bar at Sylvain in the French Quarter. It was on my radar thanks to a friend, Adam, who works for ACRL. Parked with The Rites of Spring, I sat a couple of hours, waiting out a mighty rainstorm, talking a bit with the bartender. Good food, but the thing I want more of? Fried eggplant. This was an appetizer. I am, evidently, a pig. But so very tasty!

We used to make the smoked salmon cheesecake from Emeril's first cookbook at the restaurant years back. It was a hit and miss thing - some people loving it and some people finding it weird. I actually thought it was best while still warm. Emeril serves it cold at his namesake restaurant, and his is better. Silky smooth, napped with a green onion coulis. it made sense on a hot day with a glass of chilled rosé. My favourite part of my splurge lunch there with CG, other than CG, of course!

I had never heard of John Besh before recent seasons of Top Chef, but now I've been to three restaurants that carry his name. I liked them all, but the one that I went to twice was Domenica in the Roosevelt Hotel. The second time, four of us had a very late meal of pizza to make up for a night of poor grazing on meager selections of finger foods. It was the first time, lunch with TK and Martin, that was most memorable. Two items for me. First, a chilled heirloom tomato soup with lump crabmeat. Cold, tart, some sweetness, a bit of zip. Good. After that came fried squash blossoms out of which oozed a goat cheese filling that was not at all too heavy for the blossoms themselves. I think, in fact, these may have been the best things all week here. The batter was impossibly delicate. I never imagined in a town that features to much fried food I would find something that was fried and ethereal. But I did, and I recommend it highly, and I wouldn't mind a last order before I leave town.

Oh yes, I dined elsewhere, and I will be sure to have another post with at least photos of some of the other foods. But ah, some things that I would encourage friends to try if they're down here. And if you feel a little jealous of me for this dining, well, that just makes me savour the memory of them all the more. ;-)