America Tour - Day 2

Ought to finish off Day 1 first. Went out to The New Orleans School of Cooking - see
http://www.neworleansschoolofcooking.com/. Didn't get hands on but still a very enjoyable experience
and the grub was great.


Started out with some Gumbo. This is a Southern classic. This was chicken and Andoullie (smoked 
pork sausage), loads of chicken stock and The Trinity (onions, celery and green pepper). The main 
demo was making Chicken Etouffee. This is thickened with a roux, equal parts butter and flour.  She 
(the lady doing the cooking demo) really put some time and effort into keeping it moving and really 
cooking it until it changed colour to a light brown.

She then added it to a pan of prepared chopped Trinity and garlic and then gradually blended this into 
very hot chicken stock and cooked up for 20 minutes. Added prepared chicken and cooked some more.

The whole time she kept up a continuous line od banter and engaged everybody in the "show". 
Meanwhile we were enjoying the gumbo with iced tea.

We then ate the Étouffée with beer. Nice! While we were eating that she talked about Bread Pudding 
which is very popular there. We then had some she prepared earlier. Finally she made up some Pralines 
and we went out munching them. You can tell I enjoyed it!

After that we walked down to a jazz pub near the hotel on Bourbon Street. Not my favourite music but 
it nicely finished off the day.

Anyhow, moving on to today, had a coach trip to the wider New Orleans area. Started the trip by going
 to the St. Louis cemetery. That don't impress me much. Then went to lake Pontchartrain outside New
 Orleans and saw the famous levees and the one that failed and caused all the devastation we saw on
 TV,

They have done a really quite remarkable job providing new housing and clearing up all the damage. 
You would never know what had happened.

Had a kip when we returned and I went out to eat some local delicacies called beignets at Cafe du 
Monde - see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:BeignetsPowderdSugarCDM.jpg
and also http://www.cafedumonde.com/beignets

After re-charging my batteries I went out for my last meal in New Orleans. Decided I wanted more of 
the local cuisine and went to Pere Antoine’s on Royal Street. Found just what I was looking for with a 
New Orleans Sampler. Started with Gumbo and then had Shrimp Creole, red Beans, rice and 
jambalaya. Finished up with more bread pudding. Very rich and fruity. Completely stuffed after that. 
Staggered back to the hotel and collapsed in heap!