Cafe du Monde and Cooking Class

This past weekend we took a little vacation to New Orleans. Chris and I had never been there, and his parents invited us to go with them, so we jumped at the chance. We walked all around, ate delicious food, and drank just a tish. But two of my favorite parts of the whole trip were our breakfast at Cafe du Monde and the cooking class we took.

Now, I know Cafe du Monde is full of tourists just like us, but it really was every bit as good as everyone said it was!

When you get to Cafe du Monde, all the seating is under a big awning. You walk under it and just wait for someone to get up from their table. There are so many tables and the turnover is pretty quick, so you really only have to wait a minute or two. When you sit down, the simple menu is pasted to the side of the napkin dispenser on the table:



Chris and I ordered a serving of beignets each, because we figured we wouldn't have been able to split just 3 easily :) Also, Chris ordered their famous cafe au lait, which is made with chicory. I'm not much of a coffee person, so I chose to get the hot chocolate. Once ordering, you wait, impatiently. When I'm impatient, I take pictures of Chris. And he puts up with it, for a little while...



But then he gets sick of my antics...



But just in time, the beignets come!





I'd like to point out the powdered sugar falling down as he bites in. Oh delicious.



Chris actually took about 12 photos of me taking just this one bite, but I don't think you all need to see the play-by-play of my beignet-munching.







No more!





The next morning, we took a demonstration cooking class at the New Orleans School of Cooking.





The fun thing about this class was that it was about 60% history of the different people who influenced food in New Orleans, and 40% actually cooking it. The history part was so interesting, and the instructor was such an engaging and hilarious teacher. It really helped to learn how the food and flavors came to be, in addition to just how to make it. For the actual cooking portion, he made gumbo, jambalaya, bread pudding, and pralines. And then, of course, we got to eat it!





And of course, we washed it all down with a beer/root beer from Abita, a local brewery.



New Orleans is known for its amazing food, and I'm so happy to say that we got to experience and learn more about some of it! It was a great trip, and these two meals were particularly unforgettable!