Exploring New Orleans

Tony's View

Today was a full day of living the New Orleans experience. We started out going to a cooking class where we learned how to make Gumbo, Jambalaya, King Cake Bread Pudding and Pralines. It was a fun class and we learned a lot about the famous foods of New Orleans. The Chef taught us all his Grandma's secrets of cooking and how to use your Grandchildren. Don't worry, Luke and Todd, we are still going to be soft with you. The best part of the cooking class was that we got to eat the food. He made the best food, yum. 😋 They were even nice enough to give us coffee when we got there and beer with all the food they gave us. Of course, I got to eat and drink whatever Joan didn't.
As you can see, Tom and Cindy were nice enough to try on things in the gift shop, so we could get their pictures. Such good sports they are, as I was hiding to avoid pictures from Joan. As you all know I could be a better sport about it.😉

After eating and drinking all those calories, we headed out to walk along the Great Mississippi River on the Riverwalk. I would guess we were upstream a mile or two before it dumps into the Gulf of Mexico. Check out the cool bridge Joan and Cindy posed for. After walking a little ways, we stop at the famous Cafe Du Monde for some sweet New Orleans beignets.

(Joan just entered the names correctly) You see when we finally got home it was 8:30, and I was grumpy. I know it's hard to believe I would get grumpy. Therefore, I went to bed and woke up at Midnight to type this up. Anyway, we decided to take a different way back to the car and didn't take the correct turns and ended up on Bourbon Street. What a great place to get lost. Cindy got her Google Maps out and guided us back to the car, and we got there right when our parking pass expired, whew. We drove down Frenchman Street, which is another famous Street in New Orleans.

 We decided to go to a Rum Distillery and take a tour with some rum tasting, which I believe was a great idea. This is the oldest Rum distillery in the United States at a young age of 25 years. The place was started by a famous Artist that wanted to distill some kind of alcohol. Being that the popular crop down here is sugar cane, he went with rum. Rum is distilled from molasses, hence the picture above. The middle picture shows where the high water mark was for hurricane Katrina. It was 8 feet under water and destroyed a lot of rum. Reminds me of Pirates of the Caribbean, oh no, not the rum. Now, since Hurricane Katrina, they rotate the rum and the older it gets the higher the barrels go, expensive merchandise up high. The barrels come from the used barrels of Jack Daniels and Makers Mark. Funny thing is, Joan and I been on each of those tours on Choice One trips. I do remember them saying that they sell the used barrels to others. The reason they can reuse those barrels while the bourbons and whiskey distillers can't, is because rum has very little regulations. The other industries are highly regulated. We started out in the tasting room because of our schedule. I enjoyed tasting my shots, then I enjoyed Joan's and Tom's. That is why I am so happy hugging that big bottle of rum. The artist paintings in the background of the tasting bar were from the owner. The small one in the picture was selling for $9800. Joan said we can just get our neighbor Theresa Deland to paint it for us. I wonder what she charges? One thing I know we won't ask Bud.😁

After that we went to a very nice place to eat called Commanders Palace. The food was top notch and the service was excellent. They made Tom and Cindy's banana foster right at the table with flames and everything. I got a strawberry shortcake that was awesome. You had to order it 50 minutes beforehand because even the biscuit was freshly made. Wow, another full fun day of New Orleans.

Joan's Extras

Funny thing about Old New Orleans Rum - After narrowly making it back to the Winslow's car before it got booted, we drove around looking for Frenchmen St. because we heard it's a more laid back version of Bourbon St. Trusting Google, our Sherpa ended up at this dead end by some old warehouses near the railroad tracks. We backtracked and eventually found the side of Frenchmen St with the bars & such. With a little time before dinner, we decided to tour the Old New Orleans Rum facility, and guess where it was? At the same dead end by the railroad tracks exactly where we were earlier. Too ironic!

One more thing--- here is Tom still working on that front door of our air bnb before it falls off. Really, it is only hanging on by one hinge.