Above: one of the tastiest parts of the year: Alon Shaya's charcuterie and relishes.

It was just over a year ago that I decided to get to work.  I mean really work, and I mean on this here blog.  I started it in 2008, but I tended to just piddle around on it every few months.  Last summer, I had a break from work and a need to do something creative and writerly for myself, and I channelled just about all my energy into blogging.  It's been an amazing year, some parts of which still make me pinch myself.  

Dear readers, thank you so much for coming along for the ride.  Thank you for reading my blog, for commenting and sharing your thoughts. Thanks for directing your friends and coworkers here, for recommending it to travelers looking for good places to go.  Thank you for inspiring me with your own awesome blogs and food photos.  Thanks for following Food Orleans through Facebook, Twitter, OnSugar, email, Pinterest, and RSS feeds. Cheers!

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The new Fresh Market opens today, y'all! 9:00 a.m. Be there ready to fill a cart full of goodies because everything looks so bright and shiny and gorgeous.  It's in the beautiful old Bultman Funeral Home at the corner of Louisiana and St. Charles, which was most recently a short-lived Borders Bookstore. It may just be the most awesome place in town to make groceries, considering their offerings, their prices, and their not-too-far-uptown location.

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Uncle Lionel graces the poster for Treme's bicentennial celebration.

10 days ago, New Orleans lost one of its best ambassadors: Uncle Lionel Batiste, longtime drummer of the Treme Brass Band and generally the sharpest-dressed gent in the city. It had been a while since we'd run into Uncle Lionel on Frenchmen Street or in the Quarter, but when we first moved here, Paul and I used to see him all the time.  We'd be in the Spotted Cat and he'd saunter in, dancing breezily with his cane, or we'd find him nodding his head at the Apple Barrel. Once on Paul's birthday, Uncle Lionel and Jack Fine were our tablemates for the evening, and Uncle Lionel led a rousing "Happy Birthday" for Paul while Jack played along (sitting at the table, of course).  Every time I got up from the table, Uncle Lionel watched my purse so I could dance unencumbered.  Once we even ran into him at the Ritz, drinking a High Life at Jeremy Davenport's show.  He could show up anywhere, and he leant a sense of playfulness anywhere he went.  I think that's why he's so beloved by people here and such an appropriate figure for things like the Treme poster: Uncle Lionel always had a good time, and it was a classy good time.

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This is Commander's Palace. If it looks like a fairytale building, that's because it is. It's a place where stories are told, surprises happen at any minute, and everyone works together to entertain you and take care of everything you could possibly want.  Prepare to be a princess, in other words.

Any time you eat at Commander's, it's special; from brunch on any Sunday to lunch on Thursday to dinner on Saturday night.  But the best times to eat there are on holidays, like Thanksgiving, or special occasions: the birthdays, graduations, and anniversaries that are the most important days in the story of your life.  I had a big ol' birthday this month; I turned 40.  All I wanted was to eat at the Chef's Table at Commander's, and Paul, my wonderful love, he made it happen.

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I've been cleaning out my iphone photo roll and came across some great shots that made me swoon, laugh, and shake my head at how good this stuff was.  This year I got to go to my first LSU game in Baton Rouge, and although I probably lost a small percentage of my hearing, I had a great time. And the jambalaya was great!  We're also enjoying some shucking-good oysters these days.  Come visit!

Creole Creamery: knock your flip-flops off good!

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The other day I was behind a lady buying two full loaves of po-boy bread, and the check-out guy said, "You making some po-boys?" And she said, "Naw, I'm gonna feed the ducks."  You should've seen the sad look on that man's face.  But I started dreaming about duck po-boys...because I had Po-Boy Fest on the brain!  Seriously, I'd been waiting for it for months, because I'd never made it out to that particular fest. The whole thing lasts a mere 9 hours, so you've got to get up and get yourself there, and the earlier the better, before the booths sell out.  I went looking for po-boys I don't see on menus, for some new experiences.  I could only handle two, but they were mighty tasty. Below, One's pate and pickled vegetables (rich & vinegary):

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This gorgeous woman is my great-aunt Valentina Wilkinson Sanford Duckworth--or as we like to call her, Aunt Rudy.  She's 99 and a half, and has spent most of her life in New Orleans.  She's pictured here with her boyfriend Joe Minacapelli of Slidell.  My grandmother, Frances, was Rudy's youngest sister; they had another sister, Florence, who passed away a number of years ago. Rudy is the oldest and the last surviving, and she recently moved back to the New Orleans area after a long stint in Cleveland, Oklahoma, where she moved to open a needlework business with Frances.

The needlework business was sort of a "retirement project" for the sisters, and they did well with it for about 10 years, but I don't mean to imply that once Rudy left New Orleans for a small town in Oklahoma, her life somehow quieted down. In fact, once she joined up with Frances, Rudy started to travel the world. My grandmother had taught foreign languages in high school, and had become the kind of French teacher who took a group of seniors to Europe each summer. She'd caught an insatiable travel bug, and when the needlework store started taking off, she and Rudy booked passage to Europe, Scandinavia, the U.S.S.R. (it still was, then), China, Australia, Israel, and places in between, with the dual itineraries of heavy-duty sightseeing and textile purchasing.  But let me not forget eating--they loved to try the local specialties, no matter how unusual. So when Rudy talks about restaurants, she's speaking with a wealth of experience, from cooking during the Depression to 13-course meals in Moscow--but you can tell that her favorite memories are from times she had in the grand restaurants of New Orleans.

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Because New Orleans (and all of Louisiana) is such a melting pot, and because Cajun and Creole dishes often have similar roots, including French, Spanish, Italian, African, Haitian, Cuban, German, and Native American, some of the distinctions between what's Creole food and what's Cajun food can be hard to make. In his book My New Orleans, chef John Besh explains that Creole gumbo pays tribute to a "rich variety of cultures and ingredients, whereas Cajun gumbo evolved as the essence of peasant food, a way to feed a large number of people making the very best of whatever meager ingredients were at hand," and John Folse's Encyclopedia of Cajun & Creole Cuisine extolls Creole cuisine as a "more sophisticated cousin" to Cajun cooking. Explanations like these work perfectly when comparing elegant Creole dishes to rustic cast-iron Cajun stews, but the waters grow murkier near a pot of jambalaya.

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I have two wonderful places to tell you about, that really couldn't be more different.  Let's start with Dooky Chase Restaurant, located in the Treme neighborhood of New Orleans and headed by chef Leah Chase (read an interview with her here).  Dooky Chase specializes in Creole cooking and offers its own well-loved versions of city classics like gumbo, red beans and rice, and fried chicken.  But one of its most special events is offering gumbo z'herb (pronounced "zairb") on Holy Thursday (known as Maundy Thursday to yankees).  Gumbo z'herb is basically a stew of greens and every kind of meat imaginable.  That's right--just because it's green don't mean it's vegetarian.  It is, however, delicious and light, and so full of vitamin power that you just might find yourself invigorated enough to do some spring cleaning after a bowl of it.   Holy Thursday at Dooky Chase is all about gumbo z'herb, fried chicken, and cornbread, and you must have a reservation if you'd like to eat it in their gorgeous dining room--some families arrive in packs of 12 or greater.  The good news is that you can also call in a take-out order, which is what we did:

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Red beans and rice is one of the quintessential New Orleans dishes. You eat them on Monday--every Monday, if possible--after cooking them on Sunday and soaking them on Saturday night.  Monday was "wash day" in New Orleans, and became the traditional day for eating red beans because they could be cooked all day with little fuss while doing other chores.  I love to make huge batches and freeze them in meal-size portions, so each Monday morning I can set one container out to thaw and dinner is planned.  Make up some fresh rice, heat the beans, and get some pickled onions...oh yes, the pickled onions.  More on those later.

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