It has been a very busy April for us! We’ve traveled to the West Coast, East Coast, and Gulf Coast. It’s been an amazing month filled with family, friends, fun, and of course, food.
Our first trip this month took us to Seattle and Portland to visit friends. We flew into Seattle on a Friday night and then hit the road down to Portland first thing Saturday morning. While in Portland, we visited some beautiful sites: Cathedral Park, Vista House, and several waterfalls along the Columbia River Gorge National Scenic Area. We also made a trip to Powell’s bookstore. I was so overwhelmed by their cookbook section that I had to step away and revisit it after I was able to wrap my mind around the size of it. Evan spent his time in awe of the many aisles of sci-fi books.
What did we eat in Portland? Our friend, Crissy, smoked some incredible ribs our first night in town. We visited Tin Shed for brunch one morning where I devoured a bacon and avocado Benni Hill. After a long day drinking delicious beer at Ecliptic Brewing and StormBreaker Brewing, a large group of us ate one of the best Thai dinners I’ve ever had at Pok Pok. We ordered a variety of tasty dishes for the table to share. If you ever find yourself in Portland, make sure Pok Pok is on your itinerary! It’s NOT your average Thai menu.
Upon our return to Seattle, our friend Jeremy treated us to some home cooked meals. My favorite part was a tasty potato bread that we had with breakfast, and again with cheese as a snack later in the evenings. He also served up some wonderful pork loin medallions for dinner.
Evan and I took at stroll through Pike Place Market and grabbed a bite for breakfast one morning at Lowell’s Restaurant. More bacon, coming right up! Lol. We ate so much bacon on this trip! We met up with an old friend of mine one night out on the town at Ristorante Machiavelli’s for an incredible Italian meal. I had gnocchi swimming in a delicious creamy tomato sauce with crumbled sausage. It was HEAVENLY!
The cats were glad when we arrived home, but little did they know we would be off on another adventure barely a week later! We arrived in NH, where we saw Evan’s young cousin, Daisy, perform in her school play, The Little Mermaid. She was Ursula, and she was AMAZING! We all went out to 7th Settlement Brewery to celebrate after the show. I tried something new this visit: the pretzel wrapped beer brat with cheese dipping sauce and mustard. Yum! Another culinary highlight of the trip was pulled pork tacos that Evan’s mother, Lucy, made. They melted in your mouth!
Just thinking about all of this traveling is exhausting, but we had one more trip to squeeze in before the end of the month: New Orleans for a wedding. We made a long weekend of it, packed with fun adventures.
We spent our first full day in NOLA on a day-long tour that included a bayou boat ride with Torres Cajun Swamp Tours and two plantation tours at Oak Alley and Laura Plantation. All three tours were incredible, but the lunch we were treated to at Oak Alley sticks in my mind. Lunch was served buffet style and included a salad bar (complete with pickled okra), two different gumbos, red beans and rice, crawfish étouffée (I let others enjoy this one!), smoked andouille sausage, and more. As if all of that weren’t enough, there were also two desserts: peach cobbler and bread pudding. Let’s just say that several people at our table went back for more dessert when their plates were empty! After a quick rest back at our Air B&B, we headed to Mr. Ed’s Oyster Bar for dinner. I am not much of a seafood fan, so I got the Roast Beef Po-Boy, but everyone else got oysters and fish for dinner. We all left happy and full!
On Saturday, we spend the morning and early afternoon walking around the French Quarter, taking in the sights. We were hoping to have beignets for breakfast, but the line was about a block long at Café du Monde and it was raining. We settled for brunch at Corner Oyster House. We were able to get a taste of what we were missing across the street. COH didn’t have beignets, but they did offer beignet fries as an appetizer. I got a Bloody Mary and the Rajun Cajun omelette for breakfast. Breakfast of champions? Lol, perhaps not. But it was tasty!
Saturday evening, Evan’s cousin, Andrew, got married to a lovely woman, Danielle, at City Park. From there, we headed to the Musée Conti Historical Wax Museum for the reception. My favorite food served was a traditional muffuletta sandwich. Olive salad on a sandwich? I was in heaven as trays loaded with mini-sandwiches made their way around the room during cocktail hour. To top the night off, we all followed a small band and police escort as we paraded in celebration around the French Quarter. Now THAT’S how you end a good party!
Before we headed home, we decided to wait in the long line at Café du Monde for beignets. What is a beignet? Essentially it is a warm French pastry of fried dough topped with a ton of powdered sugar. It’s amazing and totally unhealthy 😉 It was worth it!
Phew! April was a crazy month for us. We are looking forward to spending some time at home for a while. I have lots of tasty food ideas that will be coming to the blog soon! Hope you enjoyed our adventure!
Marta in Michigan 