New Orleans: Just the food, ma'am.

Hey, whoa, where have I been? Oh yeah...out of town. And then...uh, too lazy to post anything. But here I am! We have returned victorious** from our New Orleans race, and I'm ready to tell you about the good stuff: the 85,941 calories I consumed within a four-day period.

Listen, just putting all this together still hurts so good, you know? So I'm warning you: if you are now, or have ever been, a hungry person...watch out. I also want to go on record as saying that despite the extremely graphic images you are about to see, I regret nothing.

Rajun Cajun Omelette from River's Edge Restaurant. This was kind of a throwaway meal while waiting for our date with destiny po'boys, but my husband gets extremely cranky when he's hungry on vacation. I know! I thought it would be me, too!

This is called a Famous Ferdi Special from Mother's Restaurant. When I landed in New Orleans, all I cared about was making my way to Mother's. That brown stuff is called "debris" and it is the culinary equivalent of being too stupidly amazing to even draw a metaphor regarding.

This is what I want to be looking at every day around noon. If you ever have lunch with me and see me pulling out a dog-eared photo and wiping away a single tear...you'll know.

This is the cheese plate from La Crêpe Nanou. I ate the vast majority of it, despite dining with four other people. It was still Sober October at that point, and they had drinks, so the regretting of nothing continues.

This was mine, the Crêpe au Polet. Remember how ratatouille is really great? Well, as it turns out, adding chicken cooked in a white wine curry sauce and then pouring it over a crêpe does not make it any worse. 

I believe this particular crêpe speaks for itself. So good it made me want to pronounce the word crêpe correctly.

Crawfish cakes from Pat O'Briens. I didn't even take a pictures of my red beans and rice because I was super busy rescinding Sober October.

This is the Giant Seafood Platter at Deanie's. Accompanied by one of the 72 onion rings that comprise a large order. Do not do this. Please, no one ever do this.

Café au lait and beignets from Café du Monde. Iconic for a reason. Also, I could have stuck this photo anywhere in the order and it would have been accurate, since we stopped there at every conceivable opportunity.

This is the least justice-doing photo of the bunch: pecan pancakes and a cheese omelet with hash browns from the Camellia Grill. To give you an idea of what we were dealing with, check out the yellow jar in the upper left corner. Its a syrup dispenser full of melted butter. That's the culinary equivalent of I'm sorry but New Orleans cuisine just defies equivalency.

A cheeseburger from Port of Call. Tasted good, but a little skimpy on the cheese, yeah?

A Monday morning's best friend.

Okay, so, this is not a muffaletta from Central Grocery, because I did not realize that Central Grocery follows the closed-on-Mondays museum-rule. It is, instead, a muffaletta from the Market Cafe. What this venue lacked in original, authentic awesomeness it made up for in overshare-y hungover girls in the bathroom who were too dehydrated to pee and were considering a Bloody Mary because they were "three beers in and still struggling." Anyway, olive salad makes a sandwich taste good, full stop.

Our last gasp: fried calamari at Maspero's. Built in 1788! Andrew Jackson planned strategy for the Battle of New Orleans there! Probably while eating fried calamari, if I know that guy at all.

Okay, everyone grab some Tums and we'll put this little episode behind us. Whenever I feel like posting again: things that happened in between eating.

**Not in last place.