Maps of Fun

Hanging throughout the SoFAB Museum are signs from grocery stores, brands, and restaurants. Unfortunately, there’s no digital guide to reference for this gallery, so I’ll research these as best I can. (If you see this and have more to add, feel free to reblog/reply to these posts!)

Hestand’s was a specialty grocery store in the Little Rock, AK area that dated back to 1923 and closed in 2012 due to economic pressures. 

Another beloved Little Rock icon, Browning’s Mexican Food, also has a really interesting story that I will share by linking this post about its history. I had no idea that Ark-Mex food was a thing, so I guess I managed to learn something today!

The Louisiana section of the Gallery of the South at SoFAB is, unsurprisingly, a true celebration of the state and its many, many culinary contributions to American cuisine, and I absolutely love that it’s a giant love letter and shrine to the legacy of the great chef Leah Chase specifically. I love that one of her hot pink chef’s coats is framed and on display here, along with tableware and other gems from Dooky Chase’s.

The Louisiana section of the Gallery of the South at SoFAB is, unsurprisingly, a true celebration of the state and its many, many culinary contributions to American cuisine, and I absolutely love that it’s a giant love letter and shrine to the legacy of the great chef Leah Chase specifically. I love that one of her hot pink chef’s coats is framed and on display here, along with tableware and other gems from Dooky Chase’s.

Also in this area is a little tribute to Barq’s sodas, which have their origins in the New Orleans area (but allegedly the root beer was developed in Biloxi, MI), and they also house a giant version of the King Cake baby that for years was used as New Orleans’s NYE ball in the French Quarter.

Before getting to the Louisiana area of the Gallery of the South, I must pay respect to a powerful piece of art that resides at the SoFAB Museum that I fucking love: The Katrina Deli, a streetcart filled with satirical food that understandably skewers the W Bush administration’s response to Hurricane Katrina in 2005. Per the informational sign above, the newspapers referred to the people behind this piece as “the menu people” and during Mardi Gras they would take this streetcart dressed as line cooks ahead of specific parades, and then they took it around the French Quarter. The group is now known as the Krewe de Levee-té, which is fucking amazing, and I love that they are now part of Mardi Gras festivities. 

(I’m going to try to find what they’ve done both this year and last, because I bet it was unrelenting.)

(photos of the art piece in action!)

Details below the jump!

Another ongoing exhibit at the Southern Food and Beverage Museum is the Gallery of the South, where you can go state-by-state and look at the various contributions each state has made to our larger culinary lexicon. 

I’ll share some highlights in this post, with more below the jump, but up first (because it’s the first state you see): Florida.

It is impossible to talk about cocktails and New Orleans without bringing up absinthe. Walking down Bourbon Street, you’d be hard-pressed not to notice the Old Absinthe House at the Bienville intersection, and to this day they still sell the absinthe frappe first served there by bartender Cayetano Ferrer. I tried one on my first trip to the Big Easy, but didn't take any pictures because it was super-dark in the bar at the time. When we go back to NOLA in a week, I’m going to have to go back and try it again.

More below the jump!

Part of the Southern Food and Beverage Museum is the Museum of the American Cocktail which runs along the left wall of the building. Here you can see the evolution of the cocktail, from the tools used to the iconic spirits poured, and while there’s a lot to take in, it’s definitely a trip!

This Tiffany-style stained glass lampshade featuring Popeye and Olive Oyl is AMAZING.

No cataloguing of Southern food history in New Orleans would be complete without acknowledging Popeyes. Growing up in the Mid-Atlantic, Popeyes was not a brand that I had a strong attachment to compared with the likes of Roy Rogers, but when I went to college in Philadelphia, there was a Popeye’s adjacent to campus. I walked to said Popeyes with a classmate one afternoon because she was in the mood for their biscuits, and she naturally shared one with me, and it was a pretty impressive biscuit! I should note that my  experience with Southern-style biscuits was limited, but I loved that biscuit. It wouldn’t be until I bought Carla Hall’s cookbook and she shared her recipe for the “good” Popeye’s biscuits that I remembered how good they were, and now my husband is in charge of making them when we want them for brunch.

My original plan was that I was going to take the streetcar from Gianna to get me close-ish to the Southern Food & Beverage Museum, but after waiting for a bit and seeing that none of the streetcars were moving, I chalked it up to an issue and I decided to start walking. It was only a mile away, and it would take me into the Central District for the first timea b

I had to go back to Gianna because they have my undying loyalty ever since the sandal incident that happened the first time I came here. 

Wanting to try one of their cocktails, I opted for the Martini al Pomodoro, which was made with a tomato-water brine and London dry gin. I adore these kinds of drinks, and this one did not disappoint! I ordered the oven-roasted cauliflower from the daily specials menu, and it was honestly so amazing. I’ve been eating a lot more cauliflower over the last few years, and this was a particularly iteration: cheddar cauliflower, golden raisins, pine nuts, and whipped ricotta, and it was honestly perfect. 

(Note: cheddar cauliflower is due to its color, not its taste. I also really like purple cauliflower!)

Scenes from walking down to the Warehouse District for a lunch at Gianna (perhaps one of my favorite solo lunch spots in NOLA). 

We grabbed a ride to get to Bourbon Street, and of course the place we had to go to was Erin Rose because it provides a nice respite of relative chill compared to the rest of the activity just steps away. 

While my main goal for this NOLA trip was to try new-to-me places, no trip there is fully complete without at least one visit to Cochon Butcher. While we were staying at the DoubleTree on Canal so the walk was slightly longer than that from the Embassy Suites, it was basically a straight shot down Tchoupitoulas Street, which was nice, and it’s always a nice, low-key way to mark the first day after spending a good chunk of the day setting up the booth and the like.

When we arrived at the DoubleTree on Canal Street, we were told that we likely wouldn’t have our room ready until the actual check-in time at the earliest, so we all ditched as many bags as we could and made the best of it by having some chill hangout time. Following a late brunch at Napoleon House, we took a nice little stroll and I suggested Crescent City Brewhouse as a potentially chill place to hang as it had a patio and, at least on a Sunday afternoon, some live music. We opted for the upstairs area and sat on the patio where we had a lovely view of the riverside and the music wasn’t right in our ears, and it was a lovely way to while away the time we needed to get into our rooms. 

April brought me to New Orleans again--I always find it funny when I have the opportunity to visit a place twice in six months after not visiting it for more than six years--and my main goal for this trip was to try to visit as many new-to-me places as possible while revisiting a few that I hadn’t gotten to back in October. After I helped out my husband and his colleague set up their booth for their trade show, we walked to Napoleon House for brunch, and we almost didn’t go in because we thought it would be a wait. (This is why I don’t have a photo of the absolutely charming hat sign and didn’t want to be weird about it later.) The hospitality gods looked down on us and granted us some grace, because we were seated shortly thereafter.

After seeing the blossoms, I stopped for lunch at Bar Americano, which was the right decision given how beautiful the day was, and I tried their pepperoni pizza and it was fantastic. Paired with a glass of their house orange wine, it was a lovely little respite and the view a huge upgrade from the dreariness of the Mall in December.