the summer vegetable hit parade

This is one of the most beautiful pictures I have ever displayed in my blog:

 

I feel like I have finally regained my cooking mojo, and, even more impressively, my healthy cooking mojo. I have several sources to thank, one of which is at last buying my own groceries and living in a wonderfully healthful place where the farmer’s market is cheap, walking everywhere is easy, and the people around me all dig health too. Believe me, many North Carolina posts to come. Life is good here!

Let’s wind down some pictures from back when I lived in the somewhat exhausting DC suburbs. I was finding joy in soaking up my last days with the family (and CAT!) for a good long while. I was making delicious food for them.  As an added bonus, when I feel like cooking delicious and healthy food, I also feel like photographing it. I feel like my cooking creativity has finally reappeared!

So back to this layered fusion-type business:

(That upside down flip flop in the background of the picture is obviously a deeply meaningful postmodern symbol. I’ll let you come up with your own interpretation).

On to the dish. Beginning with the eggplant.

To make eggplant any good without involving extraordinary quantities of fat, you must salt it. Just slice it, spread the slices out on a cutting board, liberally salt both sides, and let ‘em sit there for awhile.

You’ll note some condensation.

  

Once that’s happened, brush the slices with a clean kitchen towel, then wipe them with olive oil. It obviously tastes better with quite a lot of olive oil; and don’t skimp too much even if you’re fat preoccupied because they’ll just be dry and grody.

Under the broiler with them, til they look like this:

  

Meanwhile, make yourself some chickpea flour batter. Any respectable socca recipe (I used Mark Bittman’s from How to Cook Everything Vegetarian but the Internet is riddled with additional ones) will do. I seasoned this less aggressively than I do when I’m serving it straight up, so the flavors wouldn’t compete too much with the other ingredients in the stack o’ goodness.

 

To get tortilla-like shapes for layering with my veggies, I cooked the batter in a skillet, like you would pancakes. The chickpea flapjacks came out surprisingly adorable. I now understand much better how one could make injera at home.

Then I threw together an exceedingly quick sauce with basically just olive oil, tomatoes, and fresh herbs. And so the layering could begin.

 

Simultaneously fancy looking, healthy, and dead easy, this is a technique that I will be incorporating into many other recipes. Chickpea flapjacks+veggie layers= boss. I think tahini sauce may be in the future, too…

 

Certain people named my boyfriend left an ENORMOUS bag of kale in my refrigerator when certain people left town. ENORMOUS. Like a SLEEPING BAG FULL OF KALE.

Fortunately, I have two words for you: kale pie.

Leftover phyllo dough? Don’t mind if I do.

 

Filling can include any of your desired combinations of:
- Kale (duh). At various points I reappropriated leftover kale chips and leftover steam kale into my kale pies, and both worked brilliantly
- Eggs (or egg yolks made into a custard with milk)
- Cheese (parmesan, goat, or feta would be nice; but I used cheddar one time and that was tasty too)
- Fresh herbs of your choice, with parsley being a very nice choice
- Lemon zest or juice
- WALNUTS! Give it a nice extra shazam

I first used phyllo dough because it is reminiscent of classic spanikopita for this recipe, and had also been languishing in my fridge for quite some time. However, in a later version I made a homemade whole wheat and olive oil pie crust and it was mighty delicious too.

I photographed this pie immediately after it came from the oven, so it was steaming quite powerfully. But you get the idea.

   

More summer goodness to come, from the state with Carolina blue skies!

estrogenfest 2013

My boyfriend has been out of town. I miss him, and yet my life still ought to be fulfilling and enjoyable as he goes off adventuring with friends and family. So I’ve been living it up, girly style. Intensely girly style.

And I now dub it Estrogenfest 2013. To give you just a small window into a current example, as I write this I am staying in with my mom on a Friday night and we are dancing in the kitchen. While the cake bakes in the oven. So there you go.

The principles of Estrogenfest are the following:

-Rekindle the spark in my cat lady heart. Sheila’s gotten very fond of the Foof that has temporarily taken up residence in our basement.

I’ve been a particularly devoted cat parent because Sheila was acting like a bit of a psycho (she became absolutely terrified of my mother when she returned from a business trip) so I took her to the vet and they diagnosed her with a little kitten UTI aw. So we’ve been diligently giving her antibiotics wrapped in little hollow treats.

- Go on lots and lots of girly friend dates.

Obviously, I still spend time with my friends even when my boyfriend is in town (because I hope to God I am not That Girl nor will I ever be) but it’s taken on a particularly meaningful tone when I send texts requesting to hang out because I’m leaving town so soon (details forthcoming.) So I’ve tried to get while the gettin’s good with my local friends. And also eat girly food because my linebacker-appetited boyfriend is out of town.

The dates have included the following:
- Getting girly salads for lunch with my high school friend Lauren and her baby
- Having a dinner with my middle school friend Virginia (and both of our respective families) while getting to know her one year old and chatting with her about the next kiddo she’s currently gestating
- Noshing on girly crepes with another friend, Patricia, in Old Town while discussing her crazy mother, cohabiting boyfriend, and so on. After our crepes, I got to meet her new beagle puppy! Then, when she was giving me a ride back into town, I noticed a bag in her car that she was taking to Goodwill. So I promptly went through it and removed a number of items of clothing.
- Going on a daytime friend date with my girl Emily, a buddy from community college. She’s heading off to grad school so we’re both leaving town. We shopped, and a Bloomingdale’s store credit allowed me to purchase designer jeans for the first time, oh, ever. They make my bum look pretty epic, I have to say. This can’t become a habit. Then, to keep our estrogen stores up and running, we got Pinkberry for lunch and talked about boys. And then we went tea sampling. Yep.

So those included lots of girly food, but to be even more specific:

- Enjoy lots and lots of eggs for dinner

Because eggs for dinner will always connote singlehood to me. Not that I’m single. Not that I want to be single. Not that I’m dissing singlehood. Fact: I think it is a tremendously positive thing to be in a happy relationship and recognize that they are possible, communication is key, etc. etc. Fact: I also think it is a tremendously positive thing to be single. There is great freedom. Freedom to eat eggs, the individually packaged, nutritionally impressive, utterly easy and quick to cook, fabulously delicious food.

I’ve made two kinds of egg pies.

The first was absolutely AMAZING but wretchedly unphotogenic.

The basic idea:
- Tomato sauce, made from fresh or canned tomatoes, slow-cooked onions, olive oil, and lotsa fresh herbs- I used oregano
- Eggs cracked atop
- Cheese atop that. Swiss cause it’s what I had.

Dude, that’s IT! Bake it at 300 til the whites are set.

It isn’t a pizza, but some of its flavors are reminiscent of pizza. And it’s comforting. And you can eat it hot or eat it cold. And you can bake its small pan in the toaster oven, my single serving favorite appliance.

   

And this guy,

 

I was all pleased with myself for making a proper quiche crust, but the recipe I used (from Eating Well) was just… not very good. So I’m not going to share it.

But the filling was a simple and delicious mixture of mushrooms, asparagus, milk, and eggs. Topping of cheese.

(Okay, fine, this didn’t actually happen during Estrogenfest. The out-of-season asparagus being an obvious hint, right? But it went with the egg and veggie pie theme. And it was a great deal prettier than the tomato pie. Sue me.)

- Read girly books and watch girly TV

Can we TALK about Orange is the New Black on Netflix?! It’s AMAZING. I just binge-watched the whole first season. Are they making more? Do we know? Love it for its excellent dialogue, strong female characters, and copious laughs.

A confession: I cat-sat for my aunt and uncle the other weekend while they were out of town. It was lots of fun (their house is beautiful and a brief walk from the Mount Vernon trail so I did lots of biking and walking). That being said, I had raging PMS so in a final Estrogenfest confession, I will admit that I ate many servings of nutella while sitting on the couch watching Pitch Perfect with the cat. It was awesome.

berry season!

Here in Virginia it has been raining like it is going out of style. It’s been a little bit of a drag for summer outings, but it has been GREAT for the wild berries that are suddenly growing absolutely everywhere! Steve, my sister, and I have been picking them like maniacs. We’ve seen neighbors out noshing, and birdies, and no doubt all sorts of nocturnal creatures are indulging in them as we sleep and STILL, there are SO MANY! Nature can be so generous!

Let’s think about how overpriced berries are at the grocery store, huh? High fives all around when we can pick them in the wild! Sure, there’s a lot of sweating… and there are brambles, so you should really wear longer legs and sleeves on your clothes… which is just as well since there’s also a lot of poison ivy around. Still, it’s FREE NINETY NINE!

Here’s the work of, oh, half an hour? (With, yknow, a little of the yield skimmed off the top in the form of snackage in the field)

   

Shining like beautiful jewels! The raspberries are quite abundant and the blackberries are still coming into season. So. stoked.

 

Steve and I spent a really adorable afternoon walking in the sunshine picking berries and then getting hilariously soaked when the aforementioned crazy rain appeared once again. Apparently it wetted my camera, which ruined the next few pictures. Blurry though they are, I have to share this fab breakfast.

We begin with:
- Wonderful farmer’s market yogurt
- Whole flaxseeds
-Rolled oats
-Almond butter

  

Then atop, you guessed it, big handfuls of ripe and delicious raspberries! Note: the berries are delicious but a bit tarter than the ones you’d find at a grocery store. They’re also a little seedier. I think this makes for a wonderful texture in yogurt bowls but I found it unpleasant when I added them to a smoothie. Just FYI.

 

Hanging out in a bowlful of dry rice restored my camera. Phew!

Something I’ve done twice now with these beautiful berries is make a beautiful pie!

And, shocker of shockers, I have a RECIPE! A legit RECIPE! For the first time in MONTHS! It’s adapted from Mark Bittman, natch, but I put enough tweaks on it that I can call it my own.

Berry-Buttermilk Pie
Adapted from How to Cook Everything Vegetarian, by Mark Bittman

1 pie crust (I used a packaged one we had leftover, which is why it looks so BUSTED. The traditional pie crust was great, but you can also do a crumble type crust. See below for variation)
3/4 cup buttermilk
3/4 cup half and half
3 eggs plus 1 egg yolk
1/2 cup minus 2 T sugar
pinch of salt
heaping 3/4 cup of your choice of berries (I used a mix of raspberries and blackberries)

Generously poke the bottom of the pie crust with a fork, then bake the empty pie crust at 350 degrees for 10 minutes, until just lightly golden. Let it cool a bit while you prepare the filling.
Meanwhile, whisk together eggs, egg yolks, salt and sugar in a large bowl. [Tip: my pastry chef cousin taught me something important. Don’t dump the sugar on top of the eggs, or it’ll cause the eggs to get all clotty and coagulated. Instead, whisk continuously and gradually add the sugar as you whisk.]
Then, in a saucepan, heat together buttermilk and half and half on low heat until they begin to steam. Remove the pan from the heat. Add a small ladleful of the hot buttermilk mixture into the bowl with the eggs and whisk vigorously until combined. Then pour the egg mixture into the pan with the rest of the buttermilk mixture.
Get your pie crust, and scatter the berries all around the bottom, in an even layer. Then pour the buttermilk filling on top. NOTE: you will have more of the custard mixture than you need for the pie unless you are using a deep dish pie dish. You can put this mixture into ramekins and make custard at the same time as the pie if you wish. Pour the buttermilk mixture into the pie crust, on top of the berries, only until it is about 1/2 an inch under the top of the pie crust. Do not add any more than this or it will be impossible to get the pie in the oven without spilling, plus it’ll rise over the top.
Carefully put the pie in the oven and bake for about 40 minutes, until the middle is mostly but not quite set (it will cook a little after you remove it from the oven).

    

Note that when I made this beautiful fresh pie a second time, I used only raspberries (because the particular field I was picking in that day did not yet possess ripe blackberries). For the filling, I was lazy and out of eggs so I used Bird’s custard powder to make the custard. Howeeeeeeeeever, for the crust I kicked it up a notch and made a homemade crust. I’m kicking myself for not measuring, because it was wonnnnnnderful, but it contained approximately:
- 2 handfuls of walnuts
- 1 big tablespoon of cold butter
- 1 tablespoon or so of white sugar, plus another 1 or so of brown
- say 1/3 of a cup of oats?

I prebaked it in the same manner, then filled it, and WOW it was good. It had the texture and richness of those crumbly raspberry bars, but it wasn’t too sweet and it had the creamy custard and… mmm… Just it was good. Just trust me.

The day I made the pie was a crazy day because I saw not one but two of my friends’ babies! And by my friends, I mean my peers! One I’ve known since 7th grade, one since 9th! First I enjoyed salads at Sweetgreen with my friend Lauren, who had a sweet little girl named Aimee about six weeks ago. Then for dinner, I joined my friend Virginia, whose wedding I posted about in this blog, and her family. She has a 15-month-old named Charlotte (who’s walking and chatting and an absolute joy to be around) and is pregnant with her second child (!!!!!!!!!)

This is all a long way of saying that I told her to eat lots of pie because it had walnuts in them and omega-3’s are good for developing babies.

Back to the original pie. Original piecrust. My family thoroughly approved of this goodness.

It was delicious. Due to it being (vaguely) red, white, and blue, I brought it to the fourth of July celebration with my family. We enjoyed it after this fab dinner:

My once-a-year hot dog, corn on the cob, Georgian beans, a giant pickle, and the most exciting thing to the lower right hand of the plate. I’ve had papas huancaina, a heavenly Peruvian spicy potato and egg dish at La Limena, a Peruvian restaurant in Rockville and then made at potluck by my Peruvian friend David. Well, my aunt tried her friend’s version and loved it too, obviously. So she took a stab at it and PEOPLE OF THE WORLD: you have to try papas huancaina. My aunt is proof positive that one can google it and find a scrumptious recipe.

As usual, this blog post is all over the place with its train of thought. Returning to the wild fruit with which it began, I inquire the group: are these wild grapes?

They were growing on the same path as the berries. We aren’t complete lunatics and didn’t eat any, but we did break them open.

Any horticultural experts out there?

farewell to nola

It has been a joy writing these posts. And also apparently folks are appreciating them, since I got a text from my vegetarian best friend begging me to road trip again to New Orleans, with her, and that she would definitely eat seafood (!).

But lest we forget, I wasn’t in New Orleans solely to binge eat on seafood. I mean, I did a lot of that. But the main reason for my presence (and that of my mom and boyfriend) was to celebrate my sister Malindi’s graduation. She worked hard for four years, getting straight A’s her last semester (!!! It’s hard enough to get straight A’s in college- I never did- and particularly your LAST SEMESTER OF SENIOR YEAR) and we were excited to honor her accomplishments.

Reason #982375982379835 that going to my own college was a stupid decision: we never got free anything. By “free”, of course, I don’t mean “free”, I mean “recouping even a tiny percentage of the extraordinary amounts of money the school received from our family”.

Anyway, Tulane excelled at this, particularly at the form of their epic Wave Goodbye party. (Tulane is the Green Wave. Get it?! Get it?!)

All around the beautiful, oak-tree-lined quad, there were little stands that looked like this:

Doesn’t it look like we were at some epic food and wine festival?! They had a DAZZLING, all-you-can eat selection of virtually every New Orleans favorite that could possibly occur to you. Best of all, in miniature portions, so you can eat more. Because obviously one regular meal is equivalent to like… sixteen miniature meals. Right? Right? Hello?

Having tasted a lot of New Orleans specialties already (see above, re: seafood binge eating), I sought out the things I hadn’t tried yet.

Top on my list was the muffaletta. That is because a few months prior, I had tasted one for the first time at my pal Grace's Mardi Gras dinner. And it had kind of made my eyes roll back in my head.

So this happened:

 

It wasn’t as good as Grace’s (I mean, cmon, she made her own rolls; this one was mass produced and a little sloppy) but I think many many things in this world would be enhanced with a slather of zesty-olive chunkiness.

Next on the agenda was crawfish, in the form of crawfish pies (foreground) and crawfish balls (back right). The pies were not dissimilar to empanadas, with a pretty zesty filling. The balls were a feat of nature, managing to be crispy on the outside and utterly soft and dense on the inside, not dissimilar to Spanish croquetas, if you’ve ever had those. My one complaint is that I wish there were LESS on the plate! Steve  and I split the two crawfish plates and there were still leftovers. (Any of you who know Steve in real life or even read this blog regularly will understand that is shocking. In his defense, New Orleans in general was kind of a food O.D., and we were all at this point just trying to keep our bellies from exploding. While still tasting everything, obviously).

There was corn soup and everyone was all “Whoop de doo, corn soup”. Until Malindi actually got it. She took a bite, and her eyes got all wide, and she gave us a taste. And then we all booked it to get creamy creamy buttery buttery ever so slightly spicy corn soup. Plus, in a weak nod to health, a cucumber-watermelon-heirloom tomato-mint salad. Nice, although unevenly distributed between cups. I didn’t get any cute little heirloom tomatoes :(

We were in an epic line for the next item (oh, just wait) so we got some spiced nuts to keep up our strength. You know the sweet, spiced, crunchy, addictive nuts at baseball games? Yeah. Those. Dangerous. Crack-like.

The epic line was for… barbecued oysters! Mega mega amazing amazing enormous barbecued oysters. Drenched in cheese and an herby vinaigrette sort of thing. Who knew, right?! Grilled oysters and parmesan are a very very good thing.

Then we had to make a visit to the dessert department. Another epic line for ice cream.

I opted for the strawberry sorbet and the creme brulee (I didn’t finish these. I feel pathetic having to defend myself about this extraordinary quantity of food. But for the record, I didn’t finish these. But I did have to try my sister’s chocolate, and that one was the best of all and I should’ve just gone for it and gotten three).

Oh and then a slight ADHD moment, where I noticed that the red beans and rice line was really short and I hadn’t had those yet in New Orleans and well…

WORTH IT. So rich and smoky. This is (spoiler alert) the first item I have recreated since coming home from Nola. And, yknow, a complete protein. So there you go.

Shockingly out of character for me, the other desserts struck me as uninteresting. Steve like them okay, but I only had a bite of each (strawberry shortcake and lemon cheesecake. Eh.)

 

But the night was young. In a hilarious turn of events, Erin, our buddy from Americorps, was also in town! What are the odds that two people currently living in Virginia and another person currently living in Texas will randomly be in New Orleans on the exact same night?! So cool. While Steve and I waited for Erin and her buddies to arrive, we sipped sangria.

(love this pic with the moon in the background, Steve!)

And then we were off to Frenchman Street! Also in the French quarter, hopefully slightly less touristy than Bourbon Street. We dipped into a nifty jazz club and got drinks, and then went outside and wandered (getting drinks to go, yet again. Ridiculous).

We stepped into this cool little alleyway, ablaze with Christmas lights, and browsed the wares of local artists. I bought myself a fleur de lis headband for the simple reason that it was $5 and I wanted to remember this lovely night in New Orleans. Then Erin saw it and loved it and wanted one too. Then we were twinsies! Posing with my apparently inebriated boyfriend.

Good times. Thanks for the picture, Erin!

Another crappy night’s sleep ensued. Got home late, were woken up at six am by Malindi’s roommates shouting about curling irons (…)

We went to pick up Malindi and Mom, and motored off to the Superdome. On the way this wretched, wretched cop wrote me a ticket for running a red light because there are BS intersections in New Orleans where you are supposed to somehow know that when turning left, you can’t just turn left because that would be too easy. No, you have to turn left and stop immediately and wait on the median until the cross street has a green light. There is no sign warning you of this. The officer did not care that I had an out of state license plate and my sister was sitting in the backseat in her cap and gown. Ugh. So Steve drove the rest of the way to the Superdome and I sobbed in the backseat.

Graduation was amazing. In lieu of Pomp and Circumstance, a jazz band played wonderfully exuberant New Orleans jazz. The speaker was the Dalai Lama!!!! One point that really struck me from his conversation was that education was a wonderful opportunity but it was important not to isolate yourself as a result of it, and to reach out to the people in the world with less. And to always attempt to form friendships, both as individuals and groups, because with the trust that comes from that, solving all of the world’s problems will be done more collaboratively and more easily too.

A photoshoot with my glamazon sister ensued.

She is second from the left. Fun fact: her pal, furthest left, had been drinking since 6 am!

Then we were off to a VERY exciting lunch. We were pretty certain in advance that it would be amazing, since my mother had been at the dentist and read about them in Food and Wine (!). The name? Cochon. The word for “pig” in French, FYI.

Inside was lovely (sorry, backlight…)

Like seemingly everywhere in New Orleans, they had a great, intriguing cocktail menu.

What would you get?!

Being a celebratory occasion, we were cool with day drinking. Being day, we opted to share. My mom and Malindi split the Honeysuckle Rose, which was great. And Steve and I split The Swinekiller. I mean, rhubarb bitters?!

It was tangy and refreshing. Have no idea what that thing floating in it was, but I dug it.

Mostly small plates happened at lunch (have I adequately given you the impression that we had already eaten A LOT?!)

Steve got two soups. His first gumbo (which he loved, and we all got to taste and admire for its intense smokiness). And another corn soup, since he’d loved the one the previous night so much. This one was chilled, and different, but just as good.

My mom, demonstrating what a balanced, non-neurotic individual she is about food got a virtuous and tasty beet and arugula salad… and fried pork cheek terrine! I had a bite of the cheeks and they were good; nice and crisp on top. Not at all what you’d expect when you hear terrine (or at least we didn’t, we’d all been imagining pate) but unique and very good.

Malindi had a hard time deciding what to order but ultimately just wanted to get something Cochon was famous for. So she got the cochon! It came with little bits of pickled turnips and pork rinds atop. And wow, turns out pork rinds can be really gourmet and delicious!

I was kind of ridiculous with what I got. I knew I wanted small plates, and I knew the crawfish and green tomato gratin was calling my name (I mean come on!)

It arrived and was thoroughly delicious and satisfying. Creamy, flavorful, interesting textures.

And, not thinking all that clearly about all the creamy cheesiness a gratin would entail and still sad and wanting something comforting after getting my stupid ticket I also ordered the macaroni and cheese.

It was delicious, but I was much more interested in my gratin. Fortunately, my mom fell in love with it in a serious (SERIOUS) way. So I passed it over to her end of the table most of the time and a good time was had by all.

We saw some epic slices of pie go past us during the meal, and we knew dessert was a foregone conclusion. Like at every point in this meal, the menu was dazzling and we wanted it all.

But we ultimately opted to share two. The chocolate peanut butter pie was a foregone conclusion, and boy was it great. The crust seemed to have chunks of nuts embedded in it, and was amazing; crunchy and salty and just a little crumbly. The filling was creamy and perfect.

However, no less delicious, and simply categorically different was the pineapple upside down cake. Malindi ultimately opted to order it (we gave the graduate dessert decision making power) because she was intrigued by the presence of cornmeal. And gosh darn it, it was a great choice. The cake had the most wonderfully caramelized outside, and a wonderful, slightly toothsome texture throughout from the presence of the cornmeal. Its sweetness, and the sticky pineapple on top, was perfectly complemented by the slightly tangy ice cream. A unique and lovely spin on a traditional dessert. We all want to make this at home!

We took a bit of time to wander in the area around the restaurant, taking more pictures of Malindi. We returned to The Chimes and hung out in their lovely garden, then went inside for a quick marathon of My Cat from Hell episodes (I completely blame the graduate for this).

And then it was time to go to the ROCK AND BOWL! Malindi’s best friend Sarah had a HUGE contingent of family in town, and they planned to celebrate at this sports spot/music venue. They invited us along, their treat. So nice! So fun!

Aside from being a magnificent bowling alley, it had a bar! Open for party guests. I know beer is a traditional bowling alley beverage, but I don’t like it. So I got a white wine spritzer, which looked a lot like it, so there you go.

 

Rock and bowl has everything you could want from a bowling alley, but also so much more. For example, they cater. They cater AMAZING NEW ORLEANS FOOD. This was my first taste of etouffee on the trip and Lord. Have. Mercy. The big fat crawfish chunks were amazing, and the rich and butter soaked sauce was amazing. I’d never really want to see how it’s made, but it sure went down easy.

Unpictured, there was also tasty jambalaya and salad.

And then, of course, it was time to get our bowl on.

Due to a quirk in putting our information into our alley’s computer, Malindi accidentally played twice. Also Malindi was a dominant force in the game, and did a lot of trash talking about the obviously inferior Malindi.

(Things like this are my family’s lifeblood. We have such bizarre senses of humor. Oh and also we are not good at bowling. Clearly.)

Yet another display of the friendly New Orleans spirit: also having a party at the Rock and Bowl that day was a girl who’d graduated from LSU. She had the most ENORMOUS cake, and when her family barely made a dent in it, started offering it to us.

We politely accepted a slice of our cake, figuring it would be mass-produced and shortening-y. Well, not so! It had the most rich, crumbly, subtly almond-infused vanilla cake, and creamy and delicious frosting. We ate it with gusto!

And then we spent several hours cleaning my sister’s room, and an exhausting 18 hour day driving back to Virginia!

Au revoir, Nouvelle Orleans. It was a blast!