I am always searching for new breakfast ideas. I found this recipe in  Breakfasts Brunches published by the Culinary Institute of America. There are over 175 recipes from the world’s premier culinary college.  There are new and familiar breakfast beverages, breakfast breads,  pastries  and  breakfast and brunch  standards -  pancakes, crepes, waffles, eggs and hot cereals with a new flair. The photo’s alone will make you salivate!

Spinach and Goat Cheese Quiche

The recipe calls for fresh spinach leaves. I did use fresh the first time I made this recipe but since  then I have found that the frozen works  just as well.  I also made the pie crust from scratch the first go around but have given in to  Pillsbury’s Pie Crusts that come in rolls. You’ll find them in the refrigerated section of the grocery not  in the frozen section.

2 tablespoons vegetable oil
1/2 cup minced onion
4 cups spinach leaves, blanched, squeezed dry and chopped ( If using frozen, use half to three quarters of  a 14 ounce frozen bag of leaf spinach.  Add spinach to a large skillet with a little bit of water. Using a low fire, let the spinach thaw out, most of the liquid will evaporate. At one point I will use  a scott towel to absorp more of the liquid.)
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/4 teaspoon pepper
3/4 cup heavy cream
2 large eggs
1/3 cup goat cheese  ( I use 2/3 cup)
1/4 cup freshly grated Parmesan chees
2 tablespoons chopped sun-dried tomatoes
One 9 -inch pie crust                                                                                              

1. Pre-heat the oven to 350 F.
2. Heat the oil in a large skillet over medium heat. Add the onion and saute, stirring frequently, until translucent, 3-4 minutes. Add the spinach and saute until very hot. This allows more moisture to evaporate, Remove from heat.
3. Whisk togetrher the cream and eggs. Stir in the Parmesan, sun dries tomatoes, goat cheese and reserved spinach. Season with salt and pepper.  Spread the spinach mixture evenly over the pie crust. ( I like to first spread the spinach mixture into the cooled pie crust  and then sprinlike the sundried tomatoes and goat cheese over the spinach mixure. I find that this ensures an even distribution.)
4. Set the quiche pan ( I use a 9 inch glass plate) on a baking sheet and bake for 30 to 40 minutes. If the crusts begins to over brown, cover the edges with aluminum foil. Remove from the oven anbd let cool for 15 to 20 minutes.
                 Enjoy!

One of the most historical stops in the French Quarter is the Old Absinthe House, a landmark located on the corner of Bourbon and Bienville. The bar was named the Absinthe Room when drinking absinthe grew in popularity in New Orleans.

Despite its nasty side effects – delirium , kidney failure, hallucinatory fugues and death – absinthe was hugely fashionable among  Victorian Orleanians and especially favored by  the musicians, madams of Storyville, the poets and artists of the French Quarter. The Absinthe Room was the epicenter of the absinthe fad , and its infamous cocktail attracted famous patrons. Oscar Wilde, Mark twain, Robert E. Lee, Sarah Bernhardt and Walt Whitman were among those that stopped in for a taste. Mixologist, Cayetano Ferrer created the absinthe frappe, a mind numbing mixture of absinthe and anisette poured over ice.

Absinthe is a strong, usually green in color, licorice-flavored alcoholic beverage made from wormwood, anise and fennel, and diluted with water and sugar. In 1912, absinthe was outlawed in the United States because of its allegedly narcotic qualities.

Local lore has it that Andrew Jackson met with pirates Pierre and Jean Lafitte in the rooms above the bar  ( then a corner grocery) to plan`the city’s defense against the advancing British fleet.

Today, the buiding now houses the Old Absinthe Bar, Tony Moran’s restaurant and the Jean Lafitte Bistro. The original 200 year old wooden bar with its dented copper top is found alongside some of the original marble fountains used to drip cold water over sugar cubes into the glasses of absinthe.

Absinthe was served by placing a slatted or serrated flat spoon, known as an absinthe spoon is laid over the glass. A sugar cube is placed on top and ice cold water slowly drips over the cube, dissolving the sugar into the glass, turning the green absinthe a milky white color known as louche, cutting the bitterness of the absinthe and readying it for drink.

Today  the Old Absinthe Bar makes a good facsimile of the traditional cocktail using the locally manufactured spirit Herbsaint, whose label features an etching of the bar itself. They to go through the whole painstaking process of dripping the cold water over the ice cube.

Definitely worth a visit to try the cocktail and enjoy the buildings infamous history.                                                                            

Over the years , so many feet have lingered in front of the sandwich counter at Domilises’s Po’Boy shop waiting for the sandwiches, that a shallow, uneven hole has been worn into the linoleum- exposing flooring of the past.

The shop opened around 1929 as an informal neighborhood bar in a room attached to Peter Domilises’s house at the corner of Annunciation and Bellecastle Streets.  It was frequented mostly by Mr. Domilise’s countrymen from Sicily. Eventually they built a sandwich bar on the annunciation Street side of the room, selling po’boys exclusively.

After World War II, the business passed to the Domilises’ son, Sam. Sam was a civic leader in this working class Uptown neighborhood, and after hours, the shop became a sort of unofficial municipal meeting room, where members of the community would gather to discuss the pressing issues of the 13th ward.

Sam Domilises died in 1981, and now the shop is run by Dot Domilise- “Miss Dot” to anyone who’s been there more than once. It remains a humlberoom, with walls of wooden paneling and a drop ceiling. Behind the beverage bar is an informal beer cam museum, which showcases yellowing tin cans of Jax, Dixie and Falstaff.                                                                                                                                              

Every celebrity that has ever visted New Orleans has stopped in to meet Ms. Dot and enjoy a po’boy. The walls are covered with signed photo’s of the likes of  Archie Manning and sons, Paul Newman, Julia Roberts and many more.

Domilise’s still serves only po’boys on untoasted loaves of Leidenheimer bread.The house speciality is the roast beef. It comes with creole mustard and a huge ladling of brown gravy, and when you’re finished, be grateful for the hand-washing sink at the far end of the room.

And don’t forget…to make it a true New Orleans experience…..add a Barq’s rootbeer and a bag of Zapp’s potato chips!

When people think of the animals affected by the Gulf oil spill,  they think about the turtles, birds and the fish. But there are other animals that without a drop of oil on them that are also directly affected. They are the dogs and cats of the cash-strapped fisherman who have been forced to surrender their  pets to local animal shelters.

Shelters all over Louisiana are seeing a huge increase in the number of pets that are being dropped off ever since the April 21st spill. At one  shelter in lower  St. Bernard Parish, where nearly every livelihood is connected to the gulf, saw an increase of more than 100 dogs this past month compared to last year.

I couldn’t  imagine having to give up cat, Rags because I was unable to feed her. I couldn’t imagine being a parent and having to take my child’s best friend away cause you needed to feed the family first. So I called my next door neighbor, Emily  and asked if she wanted to join me in raising monies to purchase food.

There are two fishing communities south of New Orleans, St. Bernard Parish on the east side of the  Mississippi River and Plaquemines Parish on the west side. I called each SPCA and was thankful to learn that both were no-kill facilities. Both were  near full capacity and would be thankful for the donation. They would also notify  local families that food was available for pickup.

Through the generosity of friends and neighbors, Emily and I raised $1300 . Yesterday we took half of the funds and delivered 14 fifty pound bags of dog food and 20  twenty five pound bags of cat food to PAWS in Plaquemines Parish. We were greeted with huge smiles and thank yous!
In a few weeks we will deliver the same to the distribution center in St. Bernard Parish.

Many thanks to the following for assisting in making this happen:

To neighbors Tommy, Patricia, Randy , Dean, Joann and Skateboard Joey, Bill and Maxine Quick, Robert Jefferies Hair Salon, Dave and Joanie Tomchuck, Ralph and Debbie Jackson, Jerry and Linda Quick,  and friends at the Touro Wellness Center.

New Orleanians care less about the passing of winter, spring, summer and fall than they do the many gustatory seasons that come and go each year. Autumn is soft shell crab season. Winter brings oysters. In spring, the air in the city turns pungent with crawfish boiling spices. But summer belongs to a man made treat….the SNO-BALL.

The custom of eating sweetened snow supposedly began with the Roman Empire, but in New Orleans, the practice took off in 1934, when Ernest Hansen invented a device called “Hansen’s Sno-Bliz.” Sno-Bliz, a motorized ice shaver, took the labor out of sno-ball preparation, which, in the pre-Hansen era, required a lot of hard work with a hand plane.

The uninitiated often confuse the sno-ball with the snow cone, which is common throughout the country but in sneered at in New Orleans. The chief difference between the two ids the quality of a sno-ball’s ice. It is shaved to a deliciously fine consistency and is far creamier than the crushed ice used in the sno-balls granular cousin.

The ice is shaved from a hefty block, scooped into a paper cone and sweetened with the syrup of the customer’s choosing. Most sno-ball shops keep fifty or more kinds of syrup on hand, ranging from fruit flavors to piquant innovations such as orchid cream vanilla. 

Sno-balls are sold at humble neighborhood stands and serving windows all across the city, though sno-ball aficionados generally swear allegiance to one of the titans of the local scene: Plum Street Sno-Balls at 1300 Burdette Street in the Riverbend area, or Hansen’s Sno-Bliz Sweet Shop, which is still owned and operated by Ernest Hansen’s family, at 4801 Tchoupitoulas Street. Despite their popularity, both shops heed seasonal tradition and close their doors from September to Easter.

Could it get any better!      

As a kid, I grew up eating  Hubig pies, as did my parents and my parents parents.  But what exactly are these wonderful delights and where did they come from?

Hubig Pies are a fried turnover, originally created in Dallas by Simon Hubig. Hubig was a German immigrant and a master baker. He recognized the popularity of his hand – held pies and expanded his operations to Houston, New Orleans, Birmingham, and into Georgia. His dreams of  going national were crushed by the stock market crash of 1929. He was forced to sell all of his bakeries except for the one on New Orleans. He also had to take on a partner, which is how the Bowman family came to be the current owners of the bakery.

The bakery has been located in the same building on Dauphine Street in the Bywater for over 80 years. The pies are fried, smothered in sugar icing, packaged and sent to over 3500 retail outlets in southern Louisiana . No doubt about it, we love our Hubig Pies! They come in all sorts of flavors , ranging from apple, lemon, pineapple, chocolate, coconut, blueberry, banana, blackberry, strawberry and sweet potato.

Some of the flavors  are strictly seasonal, such as the strawberry, blueberry, sweet potato, and the ever elusive blackberry. Hubig’s only makes these when they can get fresh local fruit, and if the crop isn’t having a productive year, they will skip them if they have to.

Hubig’s Pies are a local institution and tradition. You can see their delivery vans all over town, bringing out flats of freshly baked pies to stores of all kinds. I wish I could say that they were full of fiber and vitamins and were really good for you ……but hey, I can  only say that they  taste REALLY REALLY GOOD and they  instill  fond memories of days gone and they make you HAPPY….that can’t be all too bad!

Best of all, since Katrina, they do ship out of state.

I have been asked many times why the National WWII Museum is located in New Orleans . This type of world class museum just doesn’t quite fit with our city reputation of “Laisser Les Bon Temp Roules.”

The main reason the museum is located here in New Orleans is that the landing craft used in the invasion of Normandy and elsewhere were actually designed, built and tested here at the Higgins Shipyard. Furthermore, New Orleans was also the home city of historian Stephen Ambrose who spearheaded the effort to build such a museum.

Its easy to spend the entire day and if you are a military history buff you could spend days. Enter the large lobby  and  you’ll find  a Sherman tank, jeeps and halftracks,  a Higgins Landing Craft, artillery and aircraft.  Aloft , is one of the wars most storied C-47 planes. This very plane dropped paratroopers into Normandy on D-day, and saw action in the battle of the Bulge and “The Rhine Jump” airborne  assault in 1945.                                                        
                                                                                                              

There is a 45 minute film of all the news reels that were seen at the movie theaters at the time of the war. This was actually one of the few places the home front was able to keep in touch with what was happening around the world. This is not to be missed.

Upstairs, dramatic galleries take you through the Prelude to War. You’ll assess the political , social and economic conditions that led up to World War II and D-Day.  You’ll also take a look at what was happening on the Homefront .                                                     

Learn about the great invasion of Europe. See models of Hitlers deadly Atlantic Wall fortifications and the differences between German and American weapons, uniforms and gear. Marvel at the fleet of 5,000 ships and 11,000 planes that staged the largest amphibious and airborne assault in world history.                                                                                      
                                                                                      

Omaha. Utah. Juno. Gold. Sword. Hear moving personal stories from the men that stormed the beaches on that fateful day – June 6, 1944. Understand the ultimate cost of victory.

The attack on Pearl Harbor plunges America into the war. The Pacific Theater is full of maps, artifacts, rare photographs, and personal accounts from soldiers and civilians. You’ll learn about the jungle fighting on Guadalcanal, the battles of Iwo Jima and Okinawa and most sadly the dawn of the atomic age. This was The War That Changed The World.

The New Orleans Botanical Garden is one of the few remaining examples of a public garden designed by the Works Progress Administration (WPA)  during the Great depression. The garden opened in 1936 as New Orleans’ first public classical garden. It was originally named the City Park Rose Garden. This is a national treasure as it is one of the few remaining garden design from the Art Deco Period.

In the early 1980′s it was re-named the New Orleans Botanical Gardens.  The garden’s collections contained over 2,000 varieties of plants collected from all over the world. All this was showcased among the nation’s largest stand of mature live oaks.

The category 3+ winds of Hurricane Katrina caused serious tree damage.  At least 3 feet of flood waters covered the plant collection for nearly  two weeks. The entire plant collection was lost.  The  containerized plants that were above the flood waters were lost to the absence of electrical power. These plants included the collection of bromeliads, orchids, staghorn ferns.  Greenhouse plants were also lost due to the excessive heat buildup and the disabling of the automatic watering systems.

Fortunately the structures survived with relatively minor damage. Since 2005, one of main goals has been to restore the plant collections.

The Conservatory of the Two Sisters has been renovated. New theme gardens containing aquatics have been added. Recently completed is the New Orleans Historic Train Garden.  Today the gardens are alive with education opportunities for all ages, evening concerts, plant sales, tours and special events.