Pictures from the Sandwich Islands

The airport in Honolulu, last transfer in a long day of flying to Hawaii:

 Leaving turtle reef:

Tropical water:

 A scenic overlook:

 Comfortable:

 Wedding venue:

 Wedding sunset:

 Maui church:

 Old coral-rock building:

 Fort:

 Banyan:

 Haleakala crater, or maybe Mordor:

 Haleakala:

 Looking down on Maui:

 Observatories:

 High up:

 Silversword:

Whaler's try pot at the Sugar Museum:

 The Needle in Iao Valley, believed to be the phallic stone of the Hawaiian god of the underworld:

Cairn:

 Iao Valley:

Iao Valley (imagine this idyllic river choked with a thousand corpses):

Oak Street Po-Boy Festival 2013

I attended this year's Oak Street Po-Boy Festival.  For those unfortunate souls who don't know what I'm talking about (probably nobody, since I think I know everybody reading this blog), take a look at the Wikipedia entry.  The festival (which seems to have dropped the "Heritage and Preservation" part of the title) has been going for five or six years now, and this is probably my fourth visit.  Yeah, I know it's crowded and can be a bit of a mess, but for sampling a lot of different creative po-boys, it's hard to beat.

This year was different because, purely by tagging along to the right place at the right time, I ended up being conscripted as an official judge in the Specialty Seafood category.  Ultimately, we selected the Seither's Seafood seafood au gratin po-boy as the champion, although the Jack Dempsey's soft-shell crab remoulade was a close second.  It was a cold Sunday, and there was something about the seafood au gratin that made it the perfect comfort food for the day.  Also in contention were a soft-shell crab with wasabi mayo and caviar from Chiba, a crabmeat boudin po-boy from Bayou Girls, a shrimp & crabmeat po-boy from Ms. Linda, a smoked salmon with satsuma sandwich (not really a po-boy) from Breads On Oak, and a godawful "crawfish enchilada po-boy" Voleo's seafood which convinced me never ever to eat anything from Voleo's seafood.  And on top of that, I wasn't expecting to be a judge so I had already tried the barbecue shrimp from Pascal's Manale (buttery, peppery, and reliably delicious), the fried-chicken-and-waffle-boy from Palate (meh, maybe it would have been better if it was served a little warmer), and then after judging I had a really good garlic-stuffed roast beef po-boy from Sammy's Deli.

I don't want to get all high-falutin' about po-boy theory, but I think the specialty seafood category was inherently handicapped.  If you have the traditional seafood toppings of fried shrimp or fried oysters, those give you the kind of meaty structure you need to compete with the bread.  A lot of the specialty seafood contenders, on the other hand, were too mushy to stand up.  The soft-shell crab worked better, but because the po-boy festival portions are so small they still felt like they lacked substance.  I think the seafood au gratin worked because the melted cheese added a chewy structural matrix.  But on the whole, I think I'll stick to traditional seafood po-boys.

Friday and Saturday, 11/22-23

Pretty good enchiladas at Taqueria Guerrero, probably the best I've had in town although there are a couple of places I haven't tried yet.  Finally got around to trying the very good drinks at Twelve Mile Limit.

Then a lovely wedding at the Peristyle in City Park (with an acoustic version of I Want You To Want Me for the recessional) and a reception at the Pitot House with music by Debbie Davis and the Lost Bayou Ramblers.  Good food, good friends, and an all-around wonderful experience.  As an added bonus, I had a fun encounter with an inebriated wedding guest who (1) asked if I was courting my girlfriend, (2) sang me an old Gilette jingle and told me to shave because she'd prefer it that way, (3) railed that kids these days don't know good music, and (4) then changed his mind and wanted to adopt me because I liked Debbie Davis's covers of the The Ink Spots' I Don't Want To Set The World On Fire and the The Kinks' Sunny Afternoon.  At that point, his wife gently wrangled him away and sat him down, where he remained for the rest of the reception.  Excellent times.

Recent activities

I let the blogging lapse again for a bit and I apologize.  I'll get a couple of posts up today and then there will be another hiatus while I'm out of town for a week, but with luck I'll have some good pictures after that.

So, recently I have enjoyed: cooked an edible Thanksgiving dinner for four; eaten a much better Thanksgiving turducken hotdog with stuffing and andouille sauce at Dat Dog; celebratory drinks with a friend at Saint Lawrence, a bar that is pretty good by Quarter standards; a truly bizarre but edible vegetable stir-fry at Cosimo's in the Quarter; a good burger at High Hat; delicious German beer at the reorganized Aline Street Beer Garden, which is quickly becoming one of my favorite bars; visited the new H&M clothing place; and endured more insane weather.  I broke out the flannel sheets when it got down to the thirties on the night before Thanksgiving, but we've been back in the high 70's since then.  This is weird.