Had these little guys at Great Dane Pub & Brewery Co. They were delicious. Cheese curds will squeak while you eat this, and this was in interested combination of melty and squeaky mozzarella.

I also had the ribs with cole slaw, baked beans, and fried plantains. They were alright. I’m a tough critic when it comes to them though since I grew up in the south. I have a rule for ribs. If you can nibble off the end of a rib bone after you finish the meat, then the ribs could qualify for the good category.

I also had a little bit of the prime rib and that was pretty good. And for my nephew there were tater tots made into smiley faces. Those were cute. It was a surprisingly family friendly place for a pub with pool tables.

There was mac and cheese, pasta, burger, mash potatoes, peas and corn, and nachos. I’m sure they could do whatever you want. Looks awesome!

Anyhow, enough about that silliness. I was in Madison to check out what I hear is an amazing farmer’s market, which was at it’s peak on the Saturday of July 4th’s weekend. And my sources were correct. The farmer’s market here is definitely awesome. It’s a weekly farmers market that circles around the capitol. There must be over 200 venders, mostly selling veggies, plants, flowers, cheese, honey, and other farm products. I even got some popcorn kernels to pop later!

Their website says that they are the largest producer-only farmer’s market in the country. That means that you won’t see any resale, cutting out the middle man. The money you spend goes straight to the people who made the food or grew the produce.

So I took out my wallet and bought a chocolate bismark from Oakhouse Bakery. It was a thing of beauty that could kill someone with diabetes in one bite. A whole wheat donut with a cholate glaze on top and a butter cream icing filling. Let’s just say I found out that I didn’t have diabetes (pheww).

As I walked around, I came across a community garden, right on the capitol’s block. Usually you will find nice foliage or flowers in a spot like this, but that wasn’t enough for one of the top 5 largest agriculture counties in the country. They had to grow stuff at their own capitol building.

That’s just way too cool. Anyhow. I continued my journey around the square and purchased some Gentle Breeze honey sticks, a sourdough baquette from the Madison Sourdough Company, a beef stick, popcorn kernels on the cob, and a blueberry banana smoothie. I also ate alot of cheese samples. They were delicious.

Anyhow, the farmer’s market in Madison was great. In New Orleans, we only have 20-25 vendors at our farmer’s market on a good day. Come on New Orleans, pick it up!

The food at Jazz Fest is amazing. The vendors have to serve thousands of people a day, stock just enough food to sell out near the end of the day or festival, and deliver delicious food in order to make people want to come to their restaurant or back to their stand at the next festival. Believe me, after having some Jazz Fest food, you’ll definitely come back next year.

Crawfish Monica is creamy and delicious with the richness of tasso and lots of little crawfish tails. The spiral pasta grabs onto the cream sauce perfectly in order to make this treat an amazingly filling pasta dish. I ordered the large and probably should have just had that for the whole day. This dish appears from the same vendor every year, so make sure to have a bite of it next year. If you don’t want to buy it, then just steal a bite from some stranger nearby. If you do end up buying it, make sure to add some crystal sauce on top to counter its richness.

This isn’t just any gumbo. It’s a pheasant, quail, and sausage gumbo from Prejean’s in Lafayette, LA. It was one of the best gumbos that I ever had. It was simply amazing. You could tell the pheasant from the quail and how they were made for the gumbo. If you’ve only had seafood gumbo or chicken and sausage gumbo, then you’ve been missing out.

A cochon du lait poboy isn’t usually among my top 3 poboys, but this one was just so delicious that it blew my favorite 3 poboys out of my culinary water. I added some crystal of course ;p.

So after having a roasted duck-atastrophe of a poboy only moments ago (it was on a hoagie … seriously?), I needed a real poboy to cleanse my palete. I didn’t see any fried oyster or catfish poboys in my line of vision, so I decided to grab this poboy. I added the crystal sauce, took my photo and then a bite. It was ok, I’ve made better pork. I took another bite. This is pretty good. I liked how the mustard cole slaw blended with the crystal and pull pork. I took a third bite and then it hit me. The crystal had balanced the richness of the pork which tasted like cochon du creme rather than cochon du lait (translation: cream rather than milk). The mustard cole slaw balanced the heavyness of this cochon du creme.

It was an amazing experience … you kinda had to be there.

Now, think about those beignets that you had last night after getting wasted on Bourbon St. They were good right? Fluffy balls of fried dough … can’t go wrong with that. Now add some crawfish. Sounds weird right? Ya, stick with me here. Now instead of powder sugar on top, add some remoulade. And then I said “let there be a savory, rich beignet” … and there was the crawfish beignets … and it was good.

These were pretty good. Shrimp and pork :)

Remember the roasted duck poboy I mentioned earlier? So … ya … hoagie … right … why is it on a hoagie? We won’t talk about this anymore ….

I think the vendor’s stands were really pretty as well.

And there were alot of them. I also found it funny how nobody was discouraged by the storm. They just tossed on a poncho and ate some good food.

Well, that’s a wrap! Until next time.

On other news … the food at Jazz Fest, although expensive, is delicious. Crawfish Monica, Crawfish Beignets, and Oyster Patties are among the few delicious treats I sampled today.

I saw this funny little creature on the walk to Jazz Fest (I’m fortunate to live in walking distance of this awesome event).

Normally you don’t see roosters living in such an urban setting.

While at Jazz fest I watched Bonerama, Cowboy Mouth, and Simon and Garfunkel play their hearts out. It was awesome.

Also I saw 2 writers, 1 cast (Wendell Pierce; aka Antoine Batiste), and 1 co-creator of the HBO show Treme. I thoroughly enjoyed the interview and have also enjoyed the show. They have done an amazing job with researching New Orleans and telling the stories of how post-Katrina residents lived their lives. I moved to the city just before Katrina and returned the following January, but I was lucky to not have had to gut and rebuild my house how some of my neighbors have. I can’t wait to see the rest of the season for more post-Katrina’s stories.

I spent alot of time and money finding great food in the city, and I finally made a list of most of the places I know. This page is pretty resourceful, so check it out.

Here’s my first poboy of the day. If I was on a deserted island and could only eat one thing, I could only hope to be so lucky to have this bbq oyster poboy from Red Fish Grill (only $6). The idea of bbq oysters on poboy was made my mouth water with so much anticiipation that I couldn’t wait to take the picture before having a bite. 

The next best poboy was a vietname bbq pork poboy from Dong Phuong Bakery for a whopping $4. This poboy was simply amazing. It was the best non-seafood poboy that I’ve ever had. The Vietnamese bbq pork poboy came with cucumber, carrots, radish, cilantro,  and nuoc cham (the dipping sauce for Vietnamese spring rolls). I put Sriracha chili sauce on everything, but this poboy didn’t need it.

One thing I was astonished by was there was only one catfish poboy in the whole show. Only one … and it tasted like a fish n chips battered catfish on bread! I wasn’t so dissapointed by the poboy, but felt that the fish n chip batter does not belong on bread. This poboy was made by Jack Dempsey’s Restaurant.

I am interested in trying new things, especially food to which I previously had adverse reactions. One such adverse reaction to chicken livers was recently overcome, and at the poboy festival there were fried chicken livers poboys with cole slaw. This was definately a treat. For only $6 from Mahoney’s Mahony’s Poboy Shop, this poboy would break anyone’s disgust of liver.

If you were able to come to the festival, but couldn’t find Mahony’s, Little Tokyo, or Parkway Bakery & Tavern, then you probably didn’t see this hidden parking lot.

You can find it on this map (click for a larger pic).

Curious what all was at the festival? Check out the back of the map handout for a list of who had what (click for a larger pic).

I would like to mention that Parkway bakery & Tavern also served Chili Cheese Hot Dog on French Bread for only 2 bucks.

Little Tokyo had Sukiyaki Beef Poboy, which although sounds delicious, an announcer representing them made me cringe. She had claimed that sukiyaki beef was japanese for grilled beef. This is not true! Sukiyaki (pronounced sue-key-yah-key) is a nabe style dish. It is basically boiled in large clay pot with broth, vegetables, and mushrooms. Grilled beef would be called yakiniku (pronounced yah-key-knee-ku), literally meaning grilled meat. Little Tokyo never struck me as very authentic Japanese food anyhow.

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Also if you missed out on the festival, then you also missed out having your pictures taken with Mahony’s leprechaun.

John Besh is a food god in New Orleans. Although he has several restaurants to his name, he has proven with each one that he can master any type of food even though he is best known for his Cajun and southern food. Clay and I have been poring over Besh’s new cook book, My New Orleans, but alas, we still can’t afford to spend $24 for shaved truffles or heirloom tomatoes for some of the recipes. So, we were perhaps overly excited when we heard that Besh had recently opened an Italian restaurant within our poor college student price range.

New Orleans has a strong Italian heritage and there are many good Italian restaurants, but I think Domenica may be the best Italian place in the city. The pizzas are true Italian style- with crispy paper thin crusts, a flavorful tomato sauce, and light on the cheese. We had the Calabrese Pizza- spicy salami, mozzarella, capers and olives- and it was one of the best pizzas I’ve ever had. However, the pizza selection was quite exotic and I would probably go to The Slice or The Boot if I wanted a plain cheese or pepperoni pizza.

They also have an extensive wine list that is divided up by the region of Italy where the wines were made, and included maps highlighting each region in Italy. The Spinach and ricotta gnocchi was heavenly, like little green clouds in a nutty brown butter sauce perfectly complemented by the sliced almonds. Dessert was a rich chocolate pudding with candied hazelnuts that reminded us of Christmas dessert.

The menu features pastas, pizzas, salumi and cheese plates, as well as some unique appetizers and desserts. The lunch menu features Panini’s which are replaced by a wider selection of pasta dishes for dinner. Each entrée and appetizer comes in either a small or large plate which allows flexibility in tasting options.

Service was prompt and we were even surprised that our food made it to the table so quickly. Our waiter was extremely knowledgeable and truly enthusiastic about the quality of the food.

Although Domenica is inside the ritzy Roosevelt Hotel, the atmosphere is casual and there were quite a few Saints Jerseys at nearby tables- we went for lunch before a Saints game one Sunday. The décor is very modern and intimate but also good for groups from what we saw.

I was slightly skeptical about a chef known for Cajun food could have great Italian food but I was happily proven wrong. We would definitely return to Domenica when we want high quality and unique Italian food rather than the typical pizza and pasta fare around New Orleans.

Wait a second, I can totally do that with a rice cooker! Now thinking back, there was a Pot O’Greens episode on Good Eats. If I skip the turkey leg, and use the rice cooker to simmer the stuff, I could make some tasty greens. I could even toss some hard veggies on top like potatoes, sweet potatoes, turnips, mirlitons, beets, or rutabagas. Maybe even some broccoli, zucchini, or squash.

That was what I thought of before I first did it. This is the 4th or 5th time I’ve cooked greens this way, and it’s turned out pretty well. This time I made kale, sweet potato, turnip, and mirliton. 

First I cut the stems off of the kale.

Then I rinsed the kale in some water.

I wanted some turnips, so i peeled some.

And cubed them. That ugly thing over there is a mirliton. And they will get even uglier. They’re actually quite delicious. Some places call them chayotes, others call them vegetable pears, but here in New Orleans they’re called mirlitons.

They’re filled with a big skinny seed that kinda seperates it down the middle of the vegetable.

That’s the one, best way to do it is to slice it in have and carve it out. You actually don’t have to cut off the skin, but I didn’t feel like eating it.

After I sliced the mirliton into fry shapes, I went onto the sweet potato.

Then I tossed in the kale into the pan and loaded the other veggies on top.

I made the mirlitons into fry shapes so that I could tell them apart from the turnips.

I then added 4 cups of water since I had a large bunch of kale (I’m guessing ~2lbs).

I do about 2 cups per pound of greens. Always best to go on the upper side of that too. You don’t want to run out of water, and it doesn’t hurt to do a little bit more.

I added 1/2 cup of vinegar to cut out the weird taste that greens have.

Earlier I did a 1/4 of a cup for a pound of turnip greens and it turned out well, so I used a 1/2 a cup of apple cider vinegar for the kale, but it was a bit on the vinegary side.

Tossed in some salt.

And some sugar.

Worried about putting in all the salt and sugar? I’m not really worried. Most of that will go out in the liquid when I drain it. Only some will seep into the food. I wouldn’t really ingest much of the sugar and salt.

Also, a tablespoon of sugar is also like 13 grams of a sugar. You get 39 grams of sugar in a can of coke. Can you really say that you’re cutting back on sugar if you drink a coke, but didn’t add the couple grams of sugar? I think not.

Now I could mix it up, but why? It’s all going to go into the liquid after some evaporation then condensation. I don’t see much difference if I just let science do my work for me. Plus I’m going for a quick and easy method. That’s just an extra step that I don’t need to do.

So I cook it in the rice cooker for an hour. Or basically until everything can be poked by a fork and taste alright.

Don’t have one of these sweet Japanese rice cookers? I’m sure the American rice cookers will do alright. They basically do the same thing, make water boil and then let it simmer.

I then strained out the juices and I was done.

So the amount of work is:

• a couple of easy to clean dishes
• 5 minutes of cutting and pouring
• a very tough button pressing
• an even tougher straining job

The amount of food is either:

• 2 different sides for 4 meals
• 2 meals for a vegetarian or vegan (if you use vegan sugar)

I like to use this method of cooking greens because it so fast and easy. I can also through in extra stuff, and I have food for days.

Also, greens are pretty easy to grow in a vegetable garden, if you can keep pest off them. If you have access to a garden area, they’ll make a very cheap meal.

I saw this pumpkin at Rouse’s and thought “THAT’S STEWIE!”. That’s when I decided that I was going to carve the little green sucker. Turned out that non-traditional orange pumpkins are very little tough-skinned, making Stewie a bit tough to carve. While carving the pumpkins, we joked how Pumpkin Stewie’s was going to smash other pumpkins on Halloween night and then yell his famous line “Victory is mine!” I won’t take an responsibility for any pumpkins smashed by Pumpkin Stewie on or around Halloween night.

Jazmine and I first set aside some time with our neighbor to go pumpkin shopping at some local pumpkin patches. When that failed, the three of us went to Rouse’s, the local grocery chain. I grabbed the green pumpkin, and an extra orange pumpkin. The next day I carved up Alice in Wonderland’s Cheshire Cat into the orange pumpkin while watching the Saints game at a friend’s house. Of course the Saints beat the Dolphins. It was really good game … so good that I couldn’t pay attention to the pumpkin and only finish half of the pumpkin at my friend’s place. I ended up having to finish the pumpkin at home.

3 creepy faces and the other jack-o-lantern at the neighbor’s turned out making our neighborhood the scariest in New Orleans this Halloween.

Also, making this post slightly food-worthy… I saved the pumpkin seeds, which still needs to be toasted.

Although our neighbor’s pumpkin was an original, I still want to give the credit for the Stewie Griffin pumpkin to this GameSpot page and the credit for the Cheshire Cat pumpkin to Cinquain. I found both through a google image search.

Oct 27, 2009 correction: Credit for the Cheshire Cats pumpkin was originally given to Band of Cats. This has been corrected since the credit should go to Cinquain.