Pork and Pigskins in New Orleans

The Washington football team has one bye week in the 2011 season. Naturally, we decided to spend it at a college football game. We may have a problem.

In our defense, this football game happened to be played in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, where the LSU Tigers were hosting the Florida Gators in an SEC clash in the historic Tiger Stadium in Death Valley. Neither of us had ever been to an SEC football game before, and had always been curious to experience  football culture in the South. We were able to score press passes to the game through some of Jeremy’s connections. Add in 85-degree weather and a local scene known for not messing around when it comes to food and drink? Sold.

So here’s what we learned from our four-day swing through the Big Easy.

  • Getting out of the French Quarter is worth it. Sure, we made a routine trip down the smelly, bachelor party-jammed Bourbon Street (and this was at 1pm on a weekday) and made the obligatory visit to Cafe du Monde for beignets and cafe au lait (and a random Jonathan Papelbon sighting.) But our VRBO rental was in the heart of the Garden District and we spent most of our time there and in Uptown, wandering the mansion-lined streets and drinking Abitas in neighborhood bars.
  • People are friendly. No, REALLY friendly. Southern hospitality almost doesn’t do it justice. During dinner at Cochon (don’t miss the rabbit & dumplings, oyster & bacon sandwich and apple pie for dessert) we ended up chatting with not only the tables on either side of us, but even the tables next to them. When we commented on how good our neighbor’s soft-shell crab entree looked, she offered us a bite off her plate without missing a beat. No offense, Seattle, but that would never happen here.
  • People are friendly, part II. After oysters and gumbo at Casamento’s, we hit up Le Bon Temps Roule for drinks and music. We started chatting with a man at the bar who turned out to be a legendary booster for LSU (as in, supplies all the team’s post-game po’boys from his deli and hasn’t missed a game, home or away, in decades.) After showing us photos on his iPhone of the alligator he’d shot that week, Mike Serio promptly invited us to his tailgate at the game the next day. By the way, this is the same guy who beat Bobby Flay in a muffaletta throwdown.
  • SEC football is everything we’d hoped for and more. We arrived in Baton Rouge four hours before the 2:30pm kickoff…and sat in traffic for an hour, barely crawling even before the stadium was in view. The tailgates stretched for miles around campus, with yellow and purple-clad fans drinking, eating, blasting music and chanting “Tiger Bait!” at anyone foolish enough to wear blue and orange. After parking, we meandered over to The Chimes for pre-game drinks and then picked up some boudin balls to snack on on our way to Serio’s tailgate. He greeted us with beer and alligator sausage, plus the best barbecued pork I’ve ever had in my life.
  • Oh wait, that was all just the tailgate. The stadium and game experience was just as much of a sensory overload. Our passes gave us sideline access during the pre-game, where we watched the players warm up as 94,000 fans packed into their seats. Upstairs in the pressbox, we enjoyed a thorough beatdown of Florida by LSU, capped with an acrobatic interception by the Honey Badger.
  • Did I mention football is kind of a big deal in the South? We ended our weekend by joining a childhood friend of mine at a bar to watch the Saints game. Sitting on couches in a smoky bar surrounded by screaming – yet immensely hospitable – patrons in Drew Brees’ jerseys was the perfect way to cap off a decadent New Orleans weekend.
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Stockholm Revisited

Cleaning out my cache of Stockholm photos today and came across a few more I had to share. And as summer wanes here in Seattle, I’m reminded how much fun I’ve had making two trips to Europe (one work, one vacation, both to Sweden), and experiencing the Scandinavian quality of life (extremely high, btw). Now I’m back home and focused on work. Outside of a planned trip to New Orleans in October on our bye week, I’m grounded from travel.

More soon.

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Thoughts On Stockholm, 2

We were en route to the island of Vaxholm, and I was out on the rear deck watching Stockholm fade into the distance. The Medieval skyline of Gamla Stan gave way to the crimson, clapboard houses that dot the Swedish countryside, the summer homes of the upper class.

It was a setting not unlike one you see sailing to Orcas Island here in Washington, yet I was halfway across the world.

Lisa and I began the day in Kungsholmen with coffee and kanelbulle, the ubiquitous – and quite tasty – Swedish pastry found at all cafes in town. The idea had been to take a boat out to the Stockholm archipelago, but with dozens of choices available to us, we became paralyzed by the decision. We settled on Vaxholm/Grinda, a combination that would combine the touristy (Vaxholm) with the bucolic (Grinda). Our ferry was filled with tourists from all over Europe, including a couple from Spain who snapped photos and marveled at the way the sun glistened off the water.  Over beers (this was vacation after all), we poured over our guidebooks and sketched out a plan.

Vaxholm was our introduction to the archipelago. We wandered through the streets and browsed through the stores. Lunch was an open-faced sandwich and cake on a deck with a majestic view. Everything was homemade, and we salivated over (but avoided) a platter of fresh-baked desserts the restaurant had put out on a table. Following lunch, we hopped back on the ferry and headed over to Grinda, one of the smaller islands in the archipelago. You can traverse Grinda in less than an hour by foot, and there’s just one hotel on the island. The draw is the serenity of everything. My phone doesn’t buzz with urgent work emails. There wasn’t another English-speaking tourist within earshot. We drank up the view from the beach, where a few feet away a Swedish couple was preparing to get married.

Everything was perfect.

The sun was still high in Stockholm when we returned, and our stomachs were rumbling. Because eating out is so expensive in Sweden, we bought meatballs and salads from the Salluhallen in Ostermalm, a fancy grocer in one of the city’s trendiest neighborhoods. Back in Kungsholmen, we devoured our purchases in Rålambshovsparken, a park so full of hipsters we might as well have been in Brooklyn (we gleaned that immediately after seeing a bocce ball setup and a run of American Apparel gear). The park also explained youth and Swedish culture. Taxes have made drinking prohibitively expensive in Sweden, so we noticed a popular summertime activity is to gather in parks like Rålambshovsparken, grill some food, crack some beers and check out the opposite sex, which made for some excellent people-watching.

With temperatures hovering near 80 degrees in Stockholm, what could be better?

On this vacation, not much.

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Thoughts On Stockholm

We landed at Arlanda Airport late in the afternoon. In contrast to the grayish, Northwest-style weather we had in Copenhagen, summer was in full swing in Stockholm. The sleek bullet train (Arlanda Express) whisked us downtown, where we picked up a T-Bana pass and caught the metro for Kungsholmen.

While wandering around the mass of people hustling on and off trains, Lisa and I both remarked how Stockholm felt like a full-on metropolis. This was in comparison to Copenhagen, which feels like a more historic version of Portland, Ore.

After checking into our hotel room (thanks Marriott points!), Lisa and I set off to explore the city. We walked across the bridge to Sodermalm to find dinner, only to find out how expensive dining out really is in Sweden. So we settled on a filling plate of fried herring with lingonberry jam and mashed potatoes from a cart, a food truck trend that I wish we could import to the States.

Then we set about to stroll along the cobblestone streets of Gamla Stan, the historic (albeit tourist-filled) district of Stockholm. Both of us were somewhat on-edge from traveling, so our night ended with a gelato and a few beers at the hotel. Little did we know what we were in store for tomorrow.

Posted in Europe, Everyday Photography, Street Food, Travel | 2 Comments

A Wedding on Bainbridge

You want everything to be perfect, but after the flowers are arranged and the chairs are set and the food is ordered and the guests have arrived and the dresses and hair and makeup are all coordinated, there’s really nothing you can do about the weather but pray.

Outdoor weddings in the Pacific Northwest, even in August, are risky endeavors.

But since the summer of 2011 has been sulky as a teenager, we were happy to enough to have a few generous sunbreaks in time for the 5 p.m. ceremony. Yes, ideally, the white wicker arch at the end of the aisle should have framed Mt. Rainier perfectly. Still, we had warm air and a soft breeze off Puget Sound, and really, being able to have the wedding near the water was ultimately the most important thing.

I’ve been to enough weddings to know the drill, but this was my first time as a key member of the bridal party – my stint as a 5-year-old gender-bending ring bearer notwithstanding. Turns out being the maid of honor presents challenges not encountered in everyday life. (Pro tip: when you’re booking a bachelorette party, make sure the entertainment at the venue isn’t the melancholy stylings of a local emo band.) I’d also not recommend waiting until 15 minutes beforehand to prep for a speech on your fiance’s iPhone before delivering it to 160 guests.

But anyway, this isn’t about me. It’s about a weekend of ferry rides and suspension bridges, forest trails and picnic benches, white dahlias in mason jars and two blissfully happy people celebrating having exactly what they want in one another.

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Summer Arrives In Seattle

I think it’s safe to say the 2011 summer has been slow developing in Seattle. But the season announced itself with gusto this weekend, showcasing one of those splendid, sun-drenched afternoons that inspires tourists (overdosed on vitamin D) to move here permanently.

Lisa and I took full advantage, spending the day about the city, hanging out with friends, drinking cold beers and grilling hamburgers. About as relaxing a Saturday as one could possibly draw up.

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Thoughts On Copenhagen, 3

The final batch of selects from Copenhagen. What started as an event-free morning turned into high drama when I attempted to shoot some pictures inside the hippie/communist walled village of Christiana, a free town that enjoys protected status in Copenhagen. The problem was that people (unbeknownst to me) were partaking in some, um, illegal commerce. My camera was confiscated and the supposed digital evidence was erased, and I went on my way. No harm, no foul I guess.

Some other notes. For a city with no real skyline, Copenhagen is striking. My only gripe would be the weather; we often felt as if we brought the Northwest with us to Denmark … I also enjoy the simplicity of European breakfasts. Eggs, bacon and a few slices of rye bread were filling enough to start the day, or a bowl of strawberries with milk. For most Danes/Swedes, a cup of strong coffee and a sweet roll is all that’s needed.

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Thoughts On Copenhagen, 2

More photos from Copenhagen, Denmark

One small programming note: This summer has moved along much faster than I thought, and there’s a lot of things going on in Seattle right now. Setting aside time to blog has been pretty hard.

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These photos were from our second day in Copenhagen, most of which we spent cycling around the city. I can’t champion enough the ease which you can traverse the cityscape on bicycle in CPH, thanks to protected lanes, traffic lights just for cycles, and trails that weave throughout the city. At just $17 a day, renting a bike is a far more enjoyable option than the metro. Highlights included the Little Mermaid statue, the Danish Jewish Museum, the Royal Palace and the Carlsberg factory, where you can sample a special dark version of the beer not sold in the States.

Eating out in Copenhagen is not cheap, so we cruised over to Kodbyen (literally, the Danish meatpacking district) for pizza. Our ride home was marred by a cloud-bursting rain storm, but we were having so much fun on the trip it hardly seemed to matter.

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Thoughts On Copenhagen

A few random photos from Copenhagen, Denmark.

Copenhagen is a city that prides itself on functionality. A haven for creative design & urban-planning enthusiasts, Copenhagen is a place you visit and wonder, “why can’t all cities act like this.” This is the same thoughts swirling through my head as you ride on its efficient light-rail link from the airport, cruise around the city on its endless array of bike paths or wander the ample green spaces. Copenhagen is always in the cadre of cities listed as “most livable,” and it’s easy to see why.

Everything just … works. Of course, this is all by design and dedicated planning. Copenhagen didn’t just luck into its situation.

Be back soon with more photos (I took way too many). Enjoy.

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Noma

It was early March. 1 a.m. Seattle time, 10 a.m. Central European time. I was stationed at one computer, with two browser windows open. Jeremy manned the phone, hitting redial repeatedly on a certain number in Copenhagen (our cell phone bill would later reveal the financial cost of his efforts.)

Our goal: secure a reservation at noma, ranked the No. 1 restaurant in the world. No, really. Renowned for its focus on Nordic cuisine sourced from the highest quality ingredients of the region, noma’s culinary cred is only matched by its exclusivity – chef Rene Redzepi’s establishment only seats about 40 people a night. Reservations open three months in advance, and would-be diners slam the online reservation system and phone line with frantic attempts to snag a seat.

Miraculously, after about 20 minutes and numerous browser refreshes, we made it into the reservation system and booked our table for two at 7 p.m. on June 7.  After taking care of minor details – you know, booking Icelandair flights and lodging – three months later we found ourselves standing outside the unassuming brick building on a quiet Copenhagen block.

Continue reading

Posted in Food and Drink, Intellectual Gastronomy, Travel | 14 Comments