A few weeks ago we traveled to NOLA for the weekend. Our nephew, Noah(on Ann’s side) was having his 2nd birthday and it was a chance for us to get together with family before Noah and his parents moved to North Carolina. We were not sure we would be able to go until basically the last minute. We both took off ½ day on Friday and drove down that afternoon( it is about a 5 hour drive from Shreveport).
We stayed at a hotel on Camp Street about two blocks off of Canal. It was not anything fancy but it was nice and paid for by her parents( thank you again). It was in a great location because you could pretty much walk to wherever downtown and parts of the warehouse district. The only thing that really bothered me was parking – seems like a rip-off if you ask me, shouldn’t that be included with the hotel rate???
The thing about New Orleans (and what we love) is that when you arrive you feel an “energy” that you do not get with other cities, along with the “smell” of the city and the humidity. It’s hard to describe but if you have been there before you should understand. Its not just that it is so much bigger than where we live but I think it is the mix of culture, the people, the tourists and mostly the food. We often go to Dallas which is about 3 hours away from Shreveport and though it has its own energy it does not compare to how NOLA is.
Okay so one of the things I hastily arranged when we knew for certain that we were coming down to NOLA was to arrange a meeting with Blake from BlakeMakes.com. I have been conversing with Blake since early fall and we constantly trade food ideas, talk about living in Louisiana and brainstorming about turning food ideas into viable businesses. Its strange how much alike we think sometimes. We settled on meeting up for lunch at Cochon on Saturday. I had eaten there about a year ago when we were in NOLA for a weekend in August (which I never blogged about but have plenty of pictures). Much to my dismay Cochon is not open for lunch on Saturdays. I received a call from them stating this in response to my online reservation request as I was circling downtown New Orleans looking for a parking spot near the hotel – I was not too happy around this time. I texted Blake for other suggestions and he mentioned La Petit Grocery so that is where we settled on going. Our weekend was pretty planned out for the birthday celebration but luckily lunch was free time and Ann’s parents offered to take Ethan to the aquarium. On a side note, my family is aware of my blog but not all of them understand what I am trying to do with it. Do you know how odd it sounded when we were explaining what our lunch plans were? “Oh we are going to meet up with a guy I have been talking to online” , I definitely got some funny looks.
We got to La Petit first (or so I thought) and sat in the back at a large round table. The restaurant is what you would expect in terms of décor for Uptown New Orleans. It’s located on the corner of Magazine street and a street I cannot remember. We were there for about 5 minutes when a familiar faux hawk emerged from the bar area (there are high booths in the bar area shielding it from the rest of the restaurant). Blake and his wife Bridget had been there waiting on us already, they joined Ann, myself and Ann’s little sister Alex at the back table. We had a really good time eating lunch there and hanging out with the brains behind BlakeMakes.com LaPetit is known for their hamburger and it did not disappoint. Having never met Blake before or even speaking with him on the phone it was funny how much alike we were and how the conversation flowed like it was old friends catching up. Alex told us afterwards that sitting at the table and listening to the four of us talk all she could think of is “oh crap there are two of them (couples)”.
As a parting gift I had brought along some pork belly that I had cooked with Blake’s Peanut Butter Dulce de Leche and a bottle of my Ancho Bacon BBQ sauce. You can read about what he did with it HERE.
On a side note with La Petit: one of their owners – Joel Dondis- catered my oldest sister’s wedding and Joel’s sister was Blake and Bridget’s wedding photographer, small world.
We ended our trip to NOLA by parking uptown and taking a streetcar ride up and down St Charles. Ethan was amazed by this as this was his first time on one. We had brought him to NOLA back in the summer of 2004 but he was only 7 months old at the time.
All in all it was a very relaxing and enjoyable weekend and look for big things to come from our lunch with the BlakeMakes team.
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