contentment.

As of today, I’ve got 2 New Orleans Culinary History Tasting Tours under my belt.  Although I realize I shouldn’t jump ahead of myself, I’m feeling pretty confident.  When I was training & just tagging along w/other tour guides, I have to admit, I’d get a little pooped in the 3^rd hour of the tour.  That’s not the case when I’m guiding the tour.  As with all my other tours, I’m invigorated during the tours & on a high for at least another hour afterwards, the exhaustion doesn’t hit until later (especially if it’s been a tour in the heat of a New Orleans summer).  I guess that’s what happens when you’re doing something you actually enjoy.  After nearly 10 years working at UNO library, enjoying my work is something that I’m still getting used to.  I love this tour, seriously, it’s fantastic & a must when in nola, even if you live here, take your out of town guests next time you’re hosting.  You get great food & excellent behind the scenes sneak peeks in amazing old restaurants. 

For those of you that have been following my blog since the beginning, you know that I’ve come a long way in the past year & a half.  After 2 car accidents, lots of physical therapy, losing my job at UNO (& the benefits package, including health insurance along with it), I didn’t think I had anything left in me.  I was low, really low & it took a while to work up the motivation to pursue something new & something unknown.  Fortunately, I finally worked up the courage, took the tour guide training course with Friends of the Cabildo, & well, the rest is history. 

Every tour, I make new connections with people from around the country & even around the world.  What a difference from staying cooped up in the offices behind the scenes at an academic library.  For those who know me well, this is quite an achievement for me given the fact that I’m sometimes a self-proclaimed misanthrope.  I normally don’t like strangers & won’t talk to them…I mean, I’ll make friendly conversation waiting in line or with a cashier, but otherwise, if some stranger tries to talk to me, especially at a bar, I will have none of it!  When strangers are my tour guests, I’m happy to chat with them & bond.  I guess I don’t question their motives as much.  I don’t just trust strangers, people have to earn my trust, so I don’t generally open up with those that I don’t know, at least casually.  However, on my tours, I’m an open book…stories of my childhood in nola, surviving Katrina, nights out on the town.  So, my tours actually give back to me in many ways.

I’m also getting a lot of great reviews online from my tour guests.  I have to say, I can never get enough validation.  As someone that grew up with pretty low self esteem (a chubby girl with big curly hair), getting all this great feedback gives me quite a boost.  The most common comments that I get are my high energy, passion, knowledge, & the connection that I make with my tour groups.  That all makes sense to me, because I knew that’s what I’m good at before I began guiding tours; along with my love for my hometown, it’s why I decided to become a tour guide. 

So, I guess I’ve finally chosen the right path…

when one comes to New Orleans, one drinks.

As a native New Orleanian, I started drinking alcohol relatively young.  At 12 years old, I enjoyed my first drink, well multiple drinks, at the end of summer JCC camp staff party (w/my mother’s blessing b/c I was under the supervision of my boss & not driving).  Of course, back then, it was just wine coolers & jello shots.  By high school, I’d moved onto the party punch, ya know that fruit punch in an ice chest with a good dose of Everclear & inevitably some grass & dirt.  It was disgustingly sweet & could knock you on your ass.  But, back then, I was NOT a beer drinker, so the party punch was my only option at keggers.  Although I found that punch too sweet, I do have to admit that I liked rather sweet cocktails in my early drinking days, my favorites were White Russians, Fuzzy Navels & Melonballs.  During my college years, my taste for alcohol had matured.  I finally gave beer a try, Abita of course & a lot of fancy foreign beers.  However, when I do drink beers these days, my favorite is the Champagne of beers, Miller High Life, simply light & refreshing.  Now, I’m a proud wino, although, I do enjoy a cocktail, too (gin is my liquor of choice & I can never resist a very dirty gin martini).  For years now, my Cheers (the place where everyone knows my name & they’re always glad I came) has been the Delachaise on St. Charles Ave., my favorite watering hole in town & a great wine bar. 

Anyway, I could go on & on about my drinking history & current passion for alcohol, but let’s move on to the topic at had.  Last week, on Memorial Day, I guided my first drinks tour for a friend & a group of her girlfriends visiting from out of town.  Since this was a private tour, I created it on my own & gave my tour guests a few options for different bar & cocktail stops in the French Quarter.  Even with my voice going midway through, I have to say, the tour was a great success! 

We began at the Napoleon House, for a Pimm’s Cup.  Although the Pimm’s Cup is an English cocktail, it’s become very popular in New Orleans over the years.  When locals are in the mood for this refreshing cocktail, they go to the place that’s famous for it, the Napoleon House.  The space was built in the late 18^th century & was the home of Mayor Girod.  Despite what those damn buggie drivers in the Quarter will tell you, Napoleon NEVER lived there.  When Napoleon had been exiled to St. Helena, some New Orleanians, including the mayor & the pirate Jean Lafitte, hatched a plan to rescue Napoleon & bring him to New Orleans.  The Mayor added another level to his home which was intended as Napoleon’s New Orleans residence.  Hence the name, Napoleon House.  It’s a great old historical building with a beautiful little courtyard.  After passing our tour guide license exam last year, me & my tour guide friends went there for celebratory Pimm’s Cups.  So, I think that the Napoleon House was the perfect place to begin my personal drinks tour.

After finishing off that slice of cucumber, my favorite part of the Pimm’s Cup, we walked deep into the quarter to our 2^nd stop, Jean Lafitte’s Blacksmith Shop Bar for a Hurricane, a strong cocktail, but a classic New Orleans drink.  Although the Hurricane was created at Pat O’Brien’s, they now use a mix to make the drink, whereas Lafitte’s still uses fresh fruit juices, so all locals will tell you that Lafitte’s is the better Hurricane (even without the signature glass, resembling a hurricane lamp & inspiring the name of the cocktail).   Lafitte’s is one of the oldest buildings in the city & said to be the oldest operating bar in the country (but who knows if that stat is accurate).  I warned my tour guests that the drink has an extra shot of clear rum on top of the fruit juice.  When you drink the Hurricane with a straw, that final shot of rum really sneaks up on you, & if you’re not already buzzed, you will be after the last sip.  My suggestion was to stir up the drink with that straw so that the rum blends more with the fruit juice, not that the cocktail won’t still get you thoroughly sauced. 

Thanks to the fact that New Orleans has no open container law, we took those Hurricanes to go & started our walk back upriver to a bit classier establishment.  We made our way to Antoine’s Hermes Bar, one of my French Quarter favorites.  It has a separate entrance from the restaurant & you don’t have to be all gussied up to go in there.  Now, I don’t have any particular favorite cocktail at the Hermes Bar, I simply suggested a few options, such as the Sidecar.  However, it was happy hour, so we all went for the $4 glasses of bubbly.  I was planning on getting the gals a snack at this point since they’d just sucked back those Hurricanes & the bar has a nice little tasting menu from the restaurant.  Sadly, as it was Memorial Day, the kitchen was closed.  While at Antoine’s, I did take the opportunity to tell the group about New Orleans carnival krewe traditions since the restaurant has dining rooms named for the 4 oldest carnival krewes in town.  There’s plenty of photos & old paraphernalia in each dining room (I’ve had the good fortune of seeing each one during the New Orleans Culinary History Tours), but there are also displays in the bar.  Carnival traditions are an intriguing subject to out-of-towners, there’s nothing like them anywhere else. 

We all enjoyed our bubbly & were ready to take on the next drink.  So, on to the Carousel Bar at Hotel Monteleone for Ramoz Gin Fizzes.  This bar literally revolves!!  One of the gals in my group asked me how long it took for the bar to complete one revolution, I didn’t know…so, I timed it.  Turns out it takes just 10 minutes for the Carousel Bar to make one complete revolution, there’s a bit of trivia that I’m sure you’re glad you can now tuck away into the recesses of your brain.  When sitting at the bar, you hardly notice that it’s moving, unless you look behind you & see your surroundings changing, which made me a bit dizzy.  As I tried to shake of the dizzy spell, it was time for my Ramoz Gin Fizz…a cocktail that I’d never had the pleasure of trying before! Wow, it’s like dessert in a glass, frothy, a bit sweet, & rather filling.  I enjoyed it immensely, as did the rest of my tour group.  Fortunately, the Carousel Bar also supplies endless bowls of complementary snack mix, we scarfed down at least 6 bowls easily!  While sipping our Gin Fizzes, I told the group that this bar had once been a regular watering whole for some of America’s great literary figures, Tennessee Williams, William Faulkner, Truman Capote, & even Hemingway frequented the Carousel Bar.  They all lived just blocks away in the French Quarter, so they often gathered there for drinks, & I would imagine, rather interesting conversations. 

After our carousel ride, I had one more bar planned to finish off the tour, another favorite of mine in the Quarter.  We made our way to Arnaud’s French 75 Bar for, what else but French 75’s, of course.  It’s another restaurant bar that has a separate bar entrance & very classy décor.  We walked all the way there & found the lights off & the doors locked…c’est domage!!  I was so disappointed, not only had I planned to have a cocktail, I was going to insist that we enjoy the scrumptious soufflé potatoes with béarnaise sauce.  I was so embarrassed that I’d brought the group all the way over there only to find it closed. 

Even though my final bar stop at French 75 was a failure, we had already spent 4 whole hours wandering the quarter & partaking of tasty libations.  After all that schlepping & drinking, it was time for me to say good-bye.  The girls had a reservation at Bayona for dinner an hour later (incidentally, one in my personal top 5 nola restaurants list), so I recommended that they kill the time with a visit to the Sazerac Bar at the Roosevelt Hotel for the famous Sazerac cocktail.  If you don’t like licorice, you won’t care for this cocktail which always has either Herbsaint or Absinthe.  But, it was the very first cocktail, so if you’re feeling adventurous & you’ve never had one before, the Sazerac Bar is the right place to give one a try.

The next day I heard that they did make it to the Sazerac Bar to have their signature cocktail & then had an amazing meal at Bayona.  What a perfect way to end a Memorial Day weekend in the Crescent City. 

Perhaps I shouldn’t have revealed all the brilliant secrets of my drinks tour, but if you’ve been following my blog, you know that I can’t resist sharing every little detail when I tell a story.  I now have a great drinks tour in my repertoire, which is an essential one to have ready as a tour guide in the Big Easy.  Now, I need to focus on preparations for my first solo New Orleans Culinary History Tour in just a week.  I’m both excited & nervous, just as I have been for the first of each of my other tours.  Once I get a few under my belt, I’m sure that I’ll be cruising right along. 

Stay tuned…

no voice. no tours.

After my stepsister’s wedding 2 weeks ago, my voice was fading fast.  I figure it was a combination of a lot of talking during all of the wedding festivities & competing with the loud band during the wedding reception (the speakers were conveniently positioned just above my end of the family dining table).  Along with my voice loss came one of those razor blade sort of sore throats.  I immediately began the usual home remedies, gargling with warm salt water (trying not to gag with every gargle), plenty of hot tea with honey, OJ, Airborne, the works!  I managed to regain my voice after taking advantage of a tour-free day mid-week.  However, I jumped back into the game the next day & the sore throat came right back, along with a progressively raspier voice.  After 2 weeks of this ongoing misery, I finally got an appointment at the doctor’s office, the diagnosis: LARYNGITIS.  The treatment: an immediate steroid injection to combat some of the inflammation in my throat & instructions from the doctor to “rest my voice” for at least the next 10 days.

Needless to say, losing one’s voice is certainly an inconvenience to anyone.  However, it quickly dawned on me that not having a voice was going to make it very difficult to guide a tour.  I had to line up subs for the rest of my tours this week & lock myself up in my house, so that I could avoid speaking all together.  As my sister put it in a text to me earlier today after finding out that I have laryngitis, “that’s no good for business”.  Of course, you never realize how valuable some things are until you have to go without them.  Anyone that knows me, knows that I’m a talker, to put it kindly, so it’s hard enough to keep my mouth shut as it is.  But, being a tour guide requires you to be a talker.  Yes, I use visuals & I also talk with my hands, but the words are the most important tool when guiding a tour. 

As I hunker down at home, relying on texts & email to maintain some connection with the outside world, I’ve been thinking about what measures I can take next time in order to avoid loosing my voice again any time soon.  I always make sure to drink plenty of water during my tours & I also carry ricola (my personal cough drop of choice).  Clearly, that’s not enough.  Again, those that know me, would say that I have no problem projecting.  Not only am I a talker, but a loud (& many times, fast) talker.  However, perhaps I need to learn some better techniques on how to project without straining my vocal chords.  Any suggestions you might have are welcomed.   

In other news, the last tour that I guided before my voice completely gave out on me was a drinks tour this past Monday for a group of girls (a friend & 5 of her girlfriends visiting from out of town).  The tour was a great success.  I’ll give a detailed report, with bar & cocktail highlights in my next blog post. 

For now, a bit of prep work for my first solo New Orleans Culinary History Tasting Tour coming up next Saturday & perhaps a movie on Netflix instant view.  Just a QUIET weekend at home.