Archive for month: March, 2016

Today we went to the New Orleans Cooking school to learn about classic New Orleans food. It was super unique in that we went to farmers market to buy the ingredients for ourselves. The teams were: appetizer, salad, soup, entree, and dessert. I was head of the dessert team and we made calas. These are known as the predecessors of beignets. They are sweet rice patties deep fried with powdered sugar. We added strawberries from the farmers market to the rice patties and made a sweet strawberry sauce to the plate as well. Traditionally, these were made by slaves who used left over rice to make them. They sold them in front of parishes in an attempt to buy their freedom, but it hardly ever worked. All in all the food each team made was delicious and learning the history of each dish really made me appreciate the food and culture even more. I also got to try a piping hot fresh beignet which was something I really wanted to do while I was here.  But I have to say the most interesting food I ate today was an avocado sorbet Popsicle from the farmers market. 

   
    
   

This morning we started off our day by going to the Historic New Orleans Museum in the French Quarter. It was awesome to spend some timing hearing about the history of such a unique place and seeing the collection there. The old hand drawn maps were my favorite with all of the intricate details.  

    
 

We started out our day by visiting the New Orleans Historic Collection Musuem and learning about the history of how New Orleans really came to be and how it morphed into this colorful and vibrant city filled with such diverse people. It turns out that the largest demographic/ethnic population here in New Orleans are African Americans at around 87% and Vietnamese being the smallest group making up only 3% of the population. That being said we ended up having lunch at a Vietnamese restaurant were I had some delicious yellow curry. 

  
 
We then got a tour of the levee system here in New Orleans which really put things into perspective as to what really happened during/ after Hurricane Katrina. It’s interesting yet sad to see how much of the lower nine ward has been pretty neglected as far as restoring back the community. Sad reality is that half the time we can’t tell if communities look the way they do because of poverty or simply the effects of Katrina, or both. 

 Perhabs the most unplanned for event today has having one of our vehicles get a flat tire. It was defentily funny seeing 2 Professors with a pHd and 14 college students all trying to figure out how to change the tire. It took a while but it was all figured out. 

  
We then ended our day at Chickie Wah Wah were we had some amazing southern food and listened to some amazing local musicians. 

   

We had a great tour of the levee system and the construction failures that led to the flooding. We also got a flat tire on our way to the last levee sight, which gave us all an opportunity to learn how to change a flat tire.

Dr. Sean Anderson taking pictures on the levee wall that runs along the canal that connects the Mississippi River with Lake Ponchartrain

  Today we had a historical day we visited the NOLA historical center and saw really cool maps, guns and paintings, one of the most interesting pieces was a Budweiser water can post Katrina to help give potable water to the city. Next we ate at 9 Roses and ate delicious Vietnamese food. Than we went down to the 9th ward to see various levee failures. After that we headed to Chicka Wah Wah for culture and food we met musicians Paul Sanchez and Jamie Vessels.