Breaking tradition

Ah, the holidays, the most wonderful time of the year. The air is crisp, holiday decor is splayed about, and the mall has officially turned into the city zoo. This is by far my favorite time of the year. I am a complete sucker for the holidays. Starting around mid November, I morph into a ridiculously giddy, overly generous freak that can't get enough holiday music, watches overly sappy Christmas specials that would normally illicit my most exaggerated eye-rolls, bakes like Betty Crocker has possessed my soul, and can think of nothing more exciting than spending evenings searching for elaborate Christmas displays to enjoy.

My hubby falls on the opposite end of the spectrum.  His holiday anticipation is fueled less by the excitement of holiday feasts, decorations, and presents, and more by the onset of hunting season. Nothing makes him happier than the idea of sitting in a wooden box in frigid temperatures in hopes of bringing home his prized 8 point and an ice chest full of venison roasts. I'm pretty sure that festive lights and Christmas carols excite him about as much as hunting excites me (which, for clarification, is about as exciting as gouging my eyes out with a blunt tip of a pencil,) but most of the time, he does entertain my antics.

So, since we celebrated an early Thanksgiving with our family this year, allowing me my fill of turkey, stuffing, sweet potatoes, and other fat-filled side dishes that make my mouth water in pleasure and my arteries beg for mercy, I agreed when my hubby suggested that we enjoy a feast of Mexican food for Thanksgiving, because - surprise, surprise - he hates turkey and stuffing!
 

Chili rellenos - because clearly I missed the memo that Thanksgiving is a Mexican holiday.

Replacing my roasted turkey and pumpkin pie with chili rellenos, black bean chili and smores was just the first of many traditions to be broken this holiday season. My traditional Thanksgiving night Chrstimas tree decorating was foiled this year since my pre-lit tree has apparently become handicapped. Since it looked completely ridiculous to leave a partially lit, partially dark tree standing in my living room, we decided to just take the tree down and buy a new one after Christmas. Bummer (to me anyway, my hubby seems more than a little bit tickled.) The next day, I found that my black Friday shopping, which is normally a cherished day-long race to get the best deals possible (and one that my hubby thinks should be avoided like the plague,) just felt depressing when I was the only member of my team fighting the crowd, so I gave up and headed home. A visit to the Holiday cactus botanical gardens at Ethel M Chocolate factory was a festive and fun replacement for NOLA's "Celebration in the Oaks," and my hubby even happily accompanied me to this event (it didn't hurt that there was candy involved.) But when I couldn't top off my evening with beignets and cafe au lait, it just felt incomplete.

So, after a week of breaking traditions, I've realized something quite striking. The saying is true "There's no place like home for the holidays." It's obvious that everyone celebrates the holidays a bit different, but to me, NOLA will always do it best. So, to my friends and family at home, may your turducken be hot, and your seafood fresh (and oil-free!) May your eggnog be spiked and your cajun kringles be warm. And, should you stop by Cafe du Monde to indulge in those little pillows of powdered sugar covered goodness that we call beignets, make sure to have an extra for me!

Pet peeves will be the death of me

For the most part, I like to think that I'm a pretty easy-going kinda gal. I'm relatively easy to please and get along with most everyone that I meet, so long as they have at least some semblance of a sense of humor. But every now and then, I start to realize that I have a relatively long list of things that really get under my skin - things that make me wish it were legal to slap the stupid out of people when necessary. I can't say that it's just an intolerance for ignorance - it goes beyond that. I think it's more of an intolerance for the fake, unnecessary, and inconsiderate...and impatience definitely fuels a lot of the peeves on my list.

Realizing that this runs the risk of being the longest post in blog history, I'm only going to stick to the top 5 things that make me realize that I should really thank God that spontaneous combustion due to irritation overload is not really possible.

5. Personalized license plates. Wow. You really spent precious brain cells coming up with the plate that reads "VETYNICE" for your corvette. As if you didn't already look like a loser driving your yellow convertible advertisement for your midlife crisis. Oh, and "SPOILD1," good luck getting out of a traffic ticket given the fact that you're making it known that you're in desperate need of a reality check.

4. Wearing entirely inappropriate attire Ladies:just because it zips, doesn't mean it fits. If your end result resembles an overly stuffed sausage, go up a size. And I should never, ever have to fear getting a sneak peak of your unmentionables. If it's that short, or low cut, you shouldn't leave home in it. Finally, if the heels are so high that you can't walk without assistance, don't wear them. If you forego this advice, you deserve the butt busting fall that's sure to come. And for you guys out there, pull up your damn pants! It is not, I repeat, NOT sexy to see your underwear hanging out of your pants. Isn't it counterproductive to have to hold up your pants the whole time you're trying to walk?

3. Driving under the speed limit in the passing lane. Need I say more? Vehicles should come equipped with mini front-loading missle launchers for situations such as this.

2. Blowing your nose at the dinner table. Because nothing makes my meal more enjoyable than hearing someone expelling snot from their nose.

1. Skipping hand washing after using the bathroom. This peeve has to be universal, right? I've seen it way too often. How disgusting are you that you don't wash your hands after using the potty? I don't care how many woven layers your TP has, you're not going to convince me that your hands are completely clean after you wipe! Perhaps you missed the lessons in hygiene that the rest of the population manage to pay attention to. But I swear, next time I catch one of you filthy germ-carrying pests, I will follow you out of the bathroom and announce your faux pas loudly to everyone in earshot. Because humiliation is definitely the best way to permanently ingrain something into someone's conscious.

Those being put out there, I have to give brief mention to the runner-ups for my list of most annoying pet peeves, which include smoking immediately outside the doors of a non-smoking establishment, wearing so much cologne that my nasal membranes go into attack mode before I even spot you, fake tanning until you're orange (because skin cancer is so sexy,) parking in handicapped spots when you're clearly not handicapped, and using foul language loudly in public (because you're classy like that.)

I could go on and on, but those are the peeves that top my list. I would like to think that they are completely reasonable. What are your top five?

Soul Food in Sin City...

...sucks! That's right. In this no holds barred city, where you can find some of the best entertainment in the country, where everything is "bigger and better," where the most talented, world renowned chefs have set up suite, you'll find that it's easy to stumble across fabulous cuisine - unless, of course, you are hoping to find a hot, spicy, overly rich dish that can only be properly finished by wiping your plate with a thick slice of hot french bread and downing an alka-selser shot to prevent the burning fire of hell that's sure to replace that happy, satiated feeling in your tummy that is merely a prelude of the repercussions to come.

I've given several "genuine southern food" establishments a chance since I've landed in this soul-less city, and time and time again, I have felt the same way when I've plunged my fork into the sure-to-be amazing dish that sat in front of me - meh. Until this past Saturday, I've left the wanna-be dining establishments thinking "close, but no dice." The underwhelming meals have either been too bland, too runny (southern sauces should be thick and creamy), or just completely off the mark from the dishes they are supposed to resemble.

Bland attempts aside, most of the "southern" dishes that I've encountered here in the valley have been tolerable. That is, until I found a lovely little place (of which I will withhold the name) this past weekend, that not only claims to be a genuine Louisiana kitchen, but that is also supposedly owned by a family from New Orleans. Sure that I had found the place where I'd hit the southern food jackpot, the hubby and I decided to play the game of chance and give it a shot...and as usually happens in Vegas, the house had the last laugh and we left $60 in the hole and feeling a bit nauseous. The only word that keeps running through my mind: FAIL!!

That being said, I figured that I could provide some of you wanna-bes out there with a few bits of knowledge that are invaluable when claiming to offer "genuine southern food':
1. It is NEVER too spicy.
2. Catfish should not be chewy. Please don't make me question the origin of what I'm actually eating.
3. Yes, diners can tell the difference between frozen and fresh shrimp.
4. Four fried oysters on french bread does not equate to a stuffed po-boy. Perhaps a definition may help: Stuffed: completely full, tightly crammed, crammed with food. Get it now?
5. Though they are called grits, they should not taste as though they are composed of sandpaper.
6. I would actually like to find some crab in my crab cakes, or else, please call them breadcrumb cakes.
7. BBQ shrimp should be served in a bowl with lots of sauce and french bread for dipping, the shrimp are usually still in their shell. Shrimp creole is served over rice, shrimp are usually de-shelled. Get the difference? Perhaps you can adjust your menu now, as there is clearly some confusion.
8. Gumbo should not be the consistency of Jello pudding.
9. When making bread pudding, add some moisture to that day-old bread. The bread pudding itself should never taste day-old.  And if you claim to have a rum or whisky sauce over it, then I expect to taste the alcohol in the sauce. Please don't tease.
10. And, last but not least, don't be so damn stingy! If you've ever actually eaten at a genuine southern restaurant, you'll realize that we like to eat...a lot! There is a reason that New Orleans is a fat city - it's because the food is so good that you can't get enough of it. So, please give me more than 5 tiny shrimp over half a scoop of rice. And please, give me the whole fillet of the fish, not three tiny little ends that you cut up. And, if you say there's chicken or sausage in my gumbo, then I damn well better find at least one piece of each when I'm eating it. Get the picture? Maybe you realize your food is so crappy that people won't want to eat much of it. But if that's the case, then why even bother to serve the crap?

So, next time you're in Vegas, I highly recommend that you try one of the amazing steak restaurants out here (N9NE is my favorite,) or one of the great American West Coast Restaurants (Vintner Grill is amazing,)  the Indian food out here is to die for (try Ghandi, you won't regret it,) but please, don't roll your dice on the "Southern Food" restaurants. All of the libations you can handle will not be enough to drown what is sure to be a sub-par experience. The saying might be "What happens in Vegas stays in Vegas," but the dining experiences at the local southern restaurant wanna-bes have surely been ones that I hope to forget.

Who'd a thunk it?

At the urging of my fabulous, yet exasperating friend (you know who you are, and I love you dearly,) I've finally actually started the blog that I have procrastinated over for the past 11 months. But, before I launch into what's sure to be a string of snarky commentary about myself and pretty much everything and anything that I encounter on a daily basis, I guess I should start with some background about what motivated me to start this in the first place.

It's been an interesting year, to say the least. After spending my entire life in New Orleans, the hot, humid, mosquito infested drinking town that I love more than any place in the world, I packed my bags last January and set off on what has been quite a journey.

First stop: Hell. Or at least that's where I thought I hand landed. After a 17 hour drive up the east coast, I found myself in the sleepy little town of Linthicum Heights, MD. I was always led to believe that Hell is a hot place - you know the stories: flames of hell, hot coals, yadda, yadda. Well, my friends, we've all been mislead. Hell is a place where I experienced "Snowmageddon."  Where it is so freaking cold that you feel like mother nature is sandblasting your face and your joints literally freeze in place. Being snowed in used to sound fun, well, it sucks! Being stuck in a 400 sq. ft apartment with no tv at all for a week makes one completely understand how Jack Nicholson went crazy in "The Shining." And, timing was so convenient, given that the blizzard of the decade chose Superbowl Sunday - the year the Saints actually made it - to make its theatrics known! Let's just say that the long walk in the snow over a bridge to the nearest Ruby Tuesdays to watch the game was completely worth it. Don't get me wrong, MD did have it's redeeming qualities. Annapolis is a fun little town and it was nice to see D.C. up close and personal, but I'm not exactly begging to go back anytime soon.

A four month stint in MD and a 36 hour drive later, I finally made it to my desert oasis: Fabulous Las Vegas! Or, as I like to think of it, the glitzier, drier West Coast New Orleans. Well, sort of. The heat was a more than welcome embrace, but I've learned a few lessons over the last 6 months:  dive bar attire is apparently not appropriate for pretty much any place out here - unless you want to fit in with the homeless population (who are surprisingly creative with their signs,) I apparently have an accent (which I genuinely never suspected,) and survival skills are required in the desert, which include:  drink a ridiculous amount of water or constantly resemble a dried out raisin, buy lotion in bulk to prevent a striking resemblance to Ashy Larry, and stock up on saline spray to prevent the amazingly dramatic nosebleed that I experienced on what was supposed to be my first "big" night out on the town. Who ever would have thought that one could miss humidity?

So, Vegas is now the home to this Southern girl, and I must admit, I think I'm going to love it here. Even if I'm the only one with a Southern accent, and without a ridiculously fancy car - Ferraris and Lamborghinis are overrated :)