New Orleans 2015 – Tourist Time Part 1

The last time I was in the Crescent City, I was there for three months & didn’t really do any of the touristy things I should have done – I kept thinking I’d have time to do it later…then it was too late. So, this time, I was determined to fit as much into my two weeks as possible.

Long time, no post!

Hey lovely people…it’s been a while! Remember that first post of mine, way back when, which mentioned how bad I was at keeping in touch? Yep – this is a perfect example of that!

A few things happened at the beginning of the year which, not so much stopped me from posting, but definitely distracted me enough to prevent it.

Time for a catch up…

So, I’m back, after a ridiculously busy end-of-term: 4 nativities, 3 school plays, 2 office moves and a mildly fun staff par-ty (sing to the tune of ’12 days of Christmas’). All I want to do right now is sleep til the New Year!

I’ve also realised, writing a post everyday is a little unrealistic, so I’ll reduce & combine them, and stop inundating you with mundane ramblings (like this one!). Another reason being: my lovely little computer is still having hissy-fits, so it is taking ages to write a single post, may as well combine them all into weekly posts.

Back to something that may be of interest: I’ve finished two of those chairs I was updating and I love them! The third is still waiting & will go with my dressing table (another bargain buy). I’ll have to put better photos up soon.

I got a brilliant steal in a local charity shop the other week: a huge mirror for over my fireplace for £20 – bargain!! A friend came round today to secure it to the wall – I don’t want to know how many years bad luck I’d have if that thing fell

I’ve also painted some charity shop frames & mirrors for my ‘NOLA eclectic’ hallway, so that’s coming along, too. I’m going to put a gallery update up on those sometime after Christmas (hopefully)

Not much too say on the recipe front. I’ve not been 100% the last few weeks, so my appetite has been zero and I haven’t been able to taste much anyway – rubbish! Not exactly incentive to get in the kitchen 😦 I have just baked some biscuits for tree decorations though. I’m icing & hanging them (on the tree, not as some sort of punishment – they’re not that bad!) tomorrow, so I’ll add them to the gallery update & put the gingerbread recipe up soon.

I’ve also got a jambalaya recipe and a red beans & rice recipe to go up. I can’t taste much at the moment, but turns out Cajun-Creole food has just enough spice to get through my thick skull 🙂

If I can’t get back online tomorrow…

Happy Holidays xxx

 

 

Recipe: Sloppy Joes

I made these last Saturday for a movie-night treat, and they were soo good!

The first time I had Sloppy Joes was at the volunteer house out in NOLA, their not a standard part of UK cuisine…yet.

In the house, most of the volunteers were amazing cooks, which came as somewhat of a surprise to me – back home most late-teen/twenty-somethings weren’t into scratch cooking, but these guys went to town!

Lamanche St Community Farm

Just a few blocks walk from the bayou, this was the first site that I was assigned to during my 3 month stint with lowernine.org.

There are still very few grocery stores in the Lower Ninth Ward, so community gardens & farmers markets are a  great way of providing the neighbourhood with fresh vegetables for low cost. And with so many vacant lots still in the Lower Ninth – space is not an issue.

I did wondered what I’d done to deserve ‘hard- labour’ in 30+ degree heat (Celsius, not Fahrenheit), but the other two volunteers I was teamed with made it worthwhile.

Project: Dining Room Table

My Gran used to have this drop-leaf table in her house, that I spent a lot of my childhood playing under.

We found one exactly the same in work a few weeks back that was heading for the skip, so I asked for it to be detoured to my place instead – waste not, want not 😉

Now.. it’s solid enough, but the dark varnish is worn & the fold-away chairs that should be stored inside have gone AWOL, so it’s a bit of a fixer-upper.

Anyhow, I’ve tried it out ‘as is’ in my living room, but it just isn’t right, so I’ve decided to strip it back & see what’s under that varnish.

I’ve seen a lot of images of tables with cream/off-white bases & clear-varnished tops which I quite liked, but seemed more country kitchen than French Quarter vintage. I want it to look a little more distressed – just not as traumatized as it did originally!

So… I’ve got the Saints game on & I’ve started with the furniture stripper already – the timer is ticking away in the background & I’m itching to scratch off the old varnish (no pun intended!). The problem is, I’m not sure I have enough solvent to do the whole table tonight

Of course, that is a good excuse to head to the local decorators store tomorrow 🙂

I might see if they have some liming wax or crackle glaze as well. I’m still not sure what direction this refurb is going to take, but I’m heading towards either antiqued paint or lime-wash, or both!

The nice part about up-cycling your furniture? The thought that if you don’t like it, you can start over without a worry. Whenever I buy something new, I hate if it gets damaged, or doesn’t fit in with the room anymore. So much easier fixing things up yourself!

Besides the table, I got a bargainous haul at the charity shops yesterday.

The plates & mug will be nice additions to my mix-match ‘dinner service’, and I can always find somewhere for the handmade fleur de lys – maybe Christmas tree decs?

The frame at the back will become part of a picture wall in the hall or on the stairs, probably painted or distressed somehow – I might event paint it gold, who knows.

As for the record, no…not my musical taste either, but the cover is cute and I like the title. I’ve seen record frames in Ikea, so they’re going on my wish list, along with some fold-away chairs for the dining table.

Oop! Timer just went. Yay!!! Now to see what was under that dark varnish.

I’ll have some photos of the finished deal next week hopefully. I wonder how it’ll turn out x

Lowernine.org – My second family :)

Heads up: Thursday posts will all be about my favourite city, the love of my life – location-wise anyhow.

I didn’t go to New Orleans for a holiday – I didn’t enjoy my job back then (anyone else sensing a pattern here?), so I quit & started looking for volunteer posts I could sign up for.

Well.. maybe not just ‘I quit’…

Can I tell you a secret…?

 

This may come as a shocking revelation but… I don’t enjoy my job!

Wait…let me give you a minute to get over the shock.

It’s really not a good thing to say you don’t enjoy your job when so many people are struggling to find work, but I was talking to a friend the other day and he pointed out that, in the two years he’s known me, he’s never seen me so animated or passionate about a subject as I was during that conversation.

I’ll give you three guesses what we were talking about. Uh-huh… NOLA, and my love of everything therein.

Now… it might seem a small thing: So, your not that enthusiastic about your job – who is?!

But, I don’t want to settle.

I want to love my job.

I want to be the sort of person that goes to bed on Sunday night feeling like a child on Christmas Eve because I’m that excited to go to work the next day.

I don’t want to be the person that wakes up on Sunday depressed because it’s less that 24hours until they have to go back to work.

My solution? – I want to start my own business 🙂 (don’t we all?)

I don’t just want to bring a little bit of NOLA to my own life anymore, I want to introduce everyone else to that glorious city. As much as I can talk the hind leg off a donkey about living there, I want my friends and family (and hopefully a whole lot of other people) to experience the tastes, sounds & atmosphere of the Big Easy right on their cold, damp Welsh-slate doorstep.

So…

You lucky people are going to be getting weekly updates on the progress of my little start-up. (please, don’t run away!!!)

I’ll be trying out more recipes and thinking about designing a café/bar NOLA-style. EEEK!!! So excited!!

This is great incentive for me to stop just talking about it, and actually start doing something about it!

I’ve recruited a friend to help me with the market research side of things – roughly translated as regular lunch dates to scrutinise the eateries in our area and see what the competition will be. Safe to say, there’s not much in the way of Cajun-Creole around here, so I might be onto a winner. 🙂

Wish me luck x

Let the renovations begin!

        I mentioned in a post last week that I am trying to bring a little bit of NOLA into my life back in the UK. This isn’t so difficult with the food & the music, but injecting my little rented house with a little New Orleans style is proving…challenging?

I love looking at images of New Orleans interiors online – unsurprisingly, I don’t fancy using the volunteer house I lived in out there as the template for my interior decor, although that does seem to be the direction my home is taking at the moment!

I’m definitely more drawn to the eclectic, distressed, reclaimed look (see images above which link through to a brilliant article), rather than the French-polished perfection that you see in some of the sites. This is a good thing, as my budget at the moment allows for charity shop finds, reclamation sales & hand-me-downs! Not that I’m complaining – if it wasn’t for these sources, my furniture would be limited to the odd bookcase and (thankfully) a bed. But I think it’s time to put a little more thought into my home, it’s looking a little studenty and that’s not good for a 30 year-old!

The problem is … I’m slightly limited due to renting my home – I doubt the landlord will take kindly to me ripping plaster off the walls, despite how much better the hall would look with bare brickwork! This means basically using furniture, pictures etc to make me feel like I’m waking up in the Crescent City everyday.

So… the plan is:

Bedrooms – old-world, vintage glamour. Muted golds, distressed furniture & lux fabrics.

Living room, hallway & stairs – eclectic, warm, colourful New Orleans. Tonnes of frames & mirrors on the walls, and any ornament I like the look of!

Kitchen & office – Industrial vintage. Chunky wood, metal signs and anything with rivets.

Bathrooms – tropical. White walls, wood & stone with bright pictures & lots of plants.

Wow! I’ve just realised that my house sounds huge! It’s not – it’s like a cross between the TARDIS & a dolls house. Cute little cottage on the outside – lots of little rooms on the inside. Not very NOLA.

Do we think I can turn this around? Yep, I’m not so sure either, but I’m gonna give it a shot. At least it gives me an excuse to shop 🙂

Wish me luck x

Home win! But not in the rugby :(

So… I’m Welsh (although my family would disagree, but that’s a whole other story). This means that, whilst still enjoying watching NFL on Sundays, the weekends at the moment are for watching the Rugby Union Autumn Internationals 🙂

For me, the best part of watching Wales play at home is the pre-match sequence, especially when playing against one of the southern hemisphere teams as it’s highly unlikely the outcome will be good for us!

The initial commentary from the Millenium Stadium in Cardiff always gives me goosebumps – the BBC instils this gladiatorial vibe to their rugby union footage, and the Millennium Stadium puts on a pyrotechnic display that amps up the crowd to EPIC proportions.

Unfortunately, I missed the first hour of today’s match due to slight car issues (my poor little motor has completely baffled the mechanics & had to be brought back home on a low-loader). I managed to catch the last 20 minutes, though, and it was sooo close. The Aussies are winning, no wait… Wales have converted a try and are in the lead! Hold up… a drop-goal from the Aussies puts them back on top. And another! Rubbish 😦

Okay, so it really wasn’t that close. What can I say – I’m bias.

But, that feeling I get watching the Welsh team play, or any of the home nations really, definitely competes with my love for NOLA. I remember trying to watch the autumn internationals while I was out there (Finn McCools – best spot for rugby in the city!), and it just doesn’t compare to the atmosphere back home.

I’m sorry NOLA, but this round goes to the UK.

What was that? You want another video of the home nations? Oh, go on then 🙂

Cymru am byth! Enjoy x