help! where do i eat in new orleans?
Megan B. recently made us all jealous by heading to Hawaii for vacation and dipped into our readers’ expertise for some traveling suggestions. You guys were so fantastic that I thought I’d follow her lead. My husband and I are celebrating our first anniversary with a trip down to New Orleans at the end of January. It will be our first time in the Big Easy so we’re looking to hit up the best of the best. While I’ve been drooling over the thought of beignets at the Café du Monde, that’s as far as my Cajun cuisine tour planning has gotten. What else can’t I miss? Which bars are tourist traps and whose etouffee is life changing? Leave your suggestions after the jump and “laissez les bon temps rouler”! –Katie D.
photo courtesy of flickr user KatjusaC
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shopping the sales: utopia man/woman menorah
Early January is one of the best times for shopping the sales, especially when it comes to holiday decor. Still looking for the perfect Hanukkah menorah? Jonathan Adler (per usual) has got you covered. His Utopia Man/Woman menorah is made up of nine independent pieces that gather together to make up a delightful little community. Each piece is double-faced with a more modern man or woman on one side and a more classic, Edward Gorey-inspired face on the other. Chic and now on sale, marked down to $206.50 from $295! –Katie D.
fun field trip: waialua estate, oahu, part 1
There was only one thing I had my heart set on during our recent trip to Hawaii (other than beach lounging and pineapple inhaling): a trip out to the North Shore of Oahu, to Waialua. You see, in Waialua, they grow something pretty special — TWO somethings special to be exact, coffee and cacao. Today we’ll mostly be talking about the cacao, because there’s just too much deliciousness for just one post!
The Waialua Estate Plantation is 150 acres total, half dedicated to coffee, and half to the production of the cacao bean. The plantation, owned by Dole Hawaii, is a relatively new operation, planted in repurposed sugar cane fields in 1996 as an agricultural diversification project after Hawaii’s sugar industry collapsed. Coffee was a known flourisher in Hawaii’s sub-tropical climate, but the success of cacao was unknown, a risky endeavor. The risk has paid off — and how — producing small batch, single-origin cacao that ranks amongst the world’s finest. And it’s also some of the only chocolate grown on US soil!
photo above: looking out onto the cacao orchard, Waialua, HI
more chocolaty goodness, after the jump!
real life test kitchen: cinnamon rolls
Keep your candy canes and fruitcake. For me, cinnamon rolls are the official food of the holidays. Every year, as Christmas approached, I would head out to the grocery store with my mom to procure the obscene amount of ingredients she needed to make her annual holiday gift of cinnamon rolls. I watched as she pulled the tattered recipe from her file, year after year, the same one — a sour cream coffee cake recipe, actually. I remember her mixing the enormous batches in a rubber tub on the kitchen floor, and how my dad eventually bought her a big sheet of plexiglass so that she could roll out her dough down there too. But what has stayed with me the most all these years, is the scent — a perfect commingling of yeast, butter, cinnamon and caramelizing sugar that makes my mouth water and my heart warm just thinking about it.
Click for more, and the recipe, after the jump!
post off: what are your new year’s traditions?
“Tradition!” (sung in my heartiest Tevye voice). Sure, just about everyone stays up until midnight to ring in the new year, and I’ve mentioned before about the tradition of eating blackeyed peas on New Year’s Day, but there are tons of different New Years traditions celebrated all over the globe. In Japan, it’s customary to eat buckwheat soba before the end of the year to sever any possibility of hardship carrying over into the new year, and in Spain people celebrate by eating churros and hot chocolate (note to self: celebrate new year’s 2012 in Spain). My personal favorite is the Danish custom of smashing old dishes against friends doors to celebrate the new year — a raucous stress reliever, and an excuse to get rid of all the chipped, mismatched dishes in the cupboards. What about you, dear readers? How will you be trumpeting the arrival of 2011? –Megan B.
