From last summer: the boys at the state line in Texarkana
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Next Friday (7/29), This Week’s Various will be back! More posts in the meantime, but look for TWV then!Â
Texarkana And The Return of TWV!
Hunter Museum of Art, Chattanooga
From our last visit to the Hunter Museum of Art in Chattanooga
Takashi Murakami, Untitled (but so happy!)
Beth Lipman’s Flowers, Bread, Chalice and Sticks — she had an exhibit at the Montgomery Museum of Fine Arts a few months ago, and her exhibit at the Hunter just closed last month. This piece is in the permanent collection.
Gordon Parks, American Gothic
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Helen Frankenthaler, Around the Clock with Red
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Paul Jenkins, Phenomena Royal Violet Visitation
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Robert Indiana, Heliotherapy Love
Robert Rauschenberg, Opal Reunion — on the museum label, one of the people giving this gift was listed as Mrs Olan Mills. Turns out Olan Mills was based in Chattanooga.
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Karen LaMonte, Reclijning Dress with Drapery
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Bessie Harvy, Untitled — happy to see that they had more visionary art on display this time than a couple of years ago
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Miriam Beerman, Lodz (We Vegetate Burdens to Ourselves)
Radcliffe Bailey, In the Recturnal
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Coquette
Av and I had lunch last week at Coquette on Magazine. The interior is so pretty — tons of wood and glass plus those big chandeliers.
We had the three-course lunch. Av started with the Gulf shrimp with chorizo, Anson Mills grits, and fennel pollen
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I started with the pork country pate, with celeste figs and a blueberry mustard
I had to be a grownup to learn to enjoy figs. Before, they were associated with fig newtons, which I haven’t had since they appeared in my peers’ school lunch boxes years ago, and all that dry gummy flavor turned me off to the whole thing. Told myself I don’t like figs because I don’t like fig newtons. And then I ordered something that had them a few years ago and it was like some weird realization. Of course fig newtons don’t taste like fresh figs. How does that even happen? This is a fig. And they are fabulous.
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Av had the beef brisket sausage with summer sausage and crab roe aioli
porchetta sandwich with figs, whole grain mustard, cheddar sauce, rapini
And fries, and I’m not even crazy about fries, but they served them with mayonnaise, which changes everything. It’s like they know me.
Oooooh yeah. I look at this sandwich and there’s no way I’m eating all that bread. Most of the time when I order a sandwich, the bread gets pulled off and I just eat all the wonderfulness between the slices. But see that bottom piece of bread, that has all the juice from all the awesomeness above, and it’s all smushed but still buttery and crispy on the outside? Oh yeah, I totally took care of that.
Ohmygosh yessss.
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So the third course: for Av, the pb and j — peanut butter pot de creme, blueberry jam, shortbread cookies
And because I’m not done with figs (and neither is Coquette, seemingly), this is a fig blondie with cherry compote and whipped yoghurt.
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Every bit as good as it looks.
Every single thing was just perfect.
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Chef Michael Stoltzfus is from Maryland and never attended culinary school (his mother opened a bakery and he got hooked), and got his New Orleans start at August before opening Coquette (there was also a short-lived place he had at The Saint). Again this year, Michael was a semifinalist for James Beard Best Chef: South.
Starting June 28, Coquette is going to be doing no-menu Tuesdays with five courses for supper. See you there.
Hyatt FQ And Happy Microclimates
Hyatt French Quarter, how do I love thee? Let me count the ways. Actually there are so many ways I’m not sure how to start, but we’ll get there.
The service was super-attentive and everyone so nice.
Our room was *huge*
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…and I’m not even showing the part of the room with the desk and bathroom.
We had french doors that went out to the pool area, and the sound was so well-insulated that we never knew anyone was ever outside. The boys were in this pool all the time, every day after camp.
So. We loved the location. We loved the room. We loved the pool. And I loved the thermostat.
That’s right. 45*. It actually went down to 45* on the thermostat. I like to sleep so cold that my body is wrapped in covers and only my mouth is peeking out so I can still breathe. I set it to 45* the first night thinking it would never get close, and guess what? In the morning, I half-expected snow to be on the carpet since we had magically achieved this only-in-my-dreams frosty microclimate. Oh yes.
To walk around the Quarter all day and the ‘feels like’ to be over 100*, then come home to this? OhYeah. OhYeah.
We don’t eat out every night — there are plenty of times we’ll go to Dorignac’s or Rouses and cobble things together for supper, but the boys decided their favorite pizza in town is at Pizza Delicious in the Bywater
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Oh! One more thing about the Hyatt — a statue of Ignatius J. Reilly from A Confederacy of Dunces stands just outside the doors (the Hyatt used to be the D.H. Holmes Department Store where he would wait for his mother).
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Late last year, LSU Press published ‘A Confederacy of Dunces Cookbook‘ with foods inspired by the book. NPR’s feature on it here.
Garden Party at NOMA
For just five days this spring, the New Orleans Museum of Art hosted their Art in Bloom event with the special theme of Artful Entertaining. I got there the last day, but it was really terrific and something to attend each year now.
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Gateau Garni en Fleur by Randolph Tucker Fitz-Hugh
Gaea by Urban Earth Studio
A Place to Roost by Julie Neill
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Tea O’Clock by Zana Brown Studio
Erin Steen, Florist / Compass Point Events
Shady Oaks Garden Club
Garden Study Club of New Orleans
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Patti Constantin
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Sucre
Drums by Anthony’s
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Beverly Katz Landscape
Alvarez + Basik Design Group
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NOMA’s fall gala, Love in the Garden, will be September 23 this year, and among the honorees are the following New Orleans-based artists:
Elenora Rukiya Brown, Skylar Fein, Gene Koss, Ashley Longshore, Alexa Pulitzer, and Josephine Sacabo
Fort Pickens, Different Pensacola, And Free Parks
Earlier this summer, we brought the boys to Ft Pickens on Santa Rosa Island just down Pensacola Beach. This was our first visit, so we weren’t sure what to expect but it was wonderful. There was so much space, so many things for the boys to explore and run around and learn about, and so pretty.
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The National Park Service puts Ft Pickens under the heading of Gulf Islands National Seashore which includes Mississippi barrier islands.
At the Ft Pickens giftshop, the boys picked up a kit to complete so they could become Gulf Islands National Seashore Junior Rangers.
History of the fort is here along with self-guided map (Geronimo was imprisoned here!).
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Official Junior Rangers
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Before leaving Pensacola on this trip (of course we had lunch one day at McGuire’s, and brought home a cooler-full from Joe Patti’s like always), we decided to go in New York Deli and Pizzeria for a change. We go to Pensacola so much and have been to most of the restaurants (and always eat fish/seafood there), so it was time for something completely different.
At NY Deli, I ordered the three-salad plate, which I thought meant I’d get three dainty little dollops of the selections I made (to choose from: chunky chicken salad, curried chunky turkey salad, shrimp salad, Italian pasta, pasta Rockefeller, tortellini pesto pasta, marinated artichoke salad, antipasto, maybe six or eight others…). Anyway, no! There were two huge mounds of each of the three salads I chose! We were going to be out for a while so I didn’t pack the rest of it for carryout, but needless to say it could have fed me for another three days. They obviously take the deli = huge quantity maxim to heart.
And it was delicious.
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The boys thought this was one of the great pizzas of their life too
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This fall, we’re making plans to visit the Pensacola Museum of Art for the Frederic Brenner: Icon Series exhibit that will be up from October 14 – December 31.
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If you know or love a rising 4th grader, the National Park Service is continuing its Every Kid in a Park program so those kids and their families will enjoy a year of free entrance into National Parks just like Ft Pickens. Nice.
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