The past few weeks have been full of changes.  The weather is a given, but also the pacing of the days, workloads and attitudes toward workloads, and self-designed ideas about life in general.  Fall tends to have this effect on me regardless of what's going on in the world.  This fall I'm busier than ever, but I'm choosing to regard the busyness as a gift instead of a headache.  Living in this city is also still quite a challenge--almost too much of one at times--but I'm learning to be patient with it.  Sometimes it feels unknowable.  It throws so many parties for itself, how do you ever get a chance at some quiet one-on-one?

continue reading...

Since moving to New Orleans, we've had lots of visitors--close friends, family, high-school buddies, friends of friends--and they all want good food.  It's one of the main reasons people come here: the food.  You know you're gonna get it, and you know it'll (usually) be really good.

The question of where to go for it has been an ongoing project for the past two years--taking photos, notes, writing reviews, compiling lists so we'd have a good base of places to suggest to visitors, whether we were accompanying them or not (the list is kept here, online, so I won't lose it).  During our first year, we ate out in as many different places as our budget allowed, but stuck mostly to the mid-priced restaurants in our neighborhood; one of those places was Boucherie, in the Riverbend.

continue reading...