New Website

Hello everyone! I suppose I should have done this a few months ago, but better late than never right? Right? Anyhow, please come visit me at my shmancy new WordPress website where I'm making a huge effort to post regularly -- sucktheheads.com. I've even recruited John to create a sleek new crawfish logo. What do you think?

It's ... it's ... an ice cream po-boy?

When it comes to ice cream sandwiches, nothing is finer (in this Bay Area girl's most humble opinion) than an It's It. These rather notorious cookie and ice cream sandwiches have been around since 1928 and, regrettably, I tend to judge all other similar confections by their standard.

Now admittedly, It's-It has gone somewhat downhill since I was a kid. The ice cream isn't as creamy and the cookies seemed to have shrunk, but I will never forget being a sweaty, hungry 10 year-old girl who was treated to pizza and It's-Its after a continuous stream of disappointing soft ball games. (*Our coach was flaky and cut out on the team right before our big game, taking all of the candy money we earned with her, but that's another story). Smooth, dense chocolate ice cream sandwiched by two, chewy oatmeal cookies and dipped in dark chocolate ... I can almost taste it.

Anyhow, recently I was cajoled into trying a new ice cream sandwich that New Orleans Ice Cream Co. just launched this June dubbed (as one might expect) the "Po'Boy." Similar in size to the It's It, the Po'Boys are made with the company's own Creole cream cheese or vanilla bean ice creams delicately squashed between two chocolate cookies and dipped in milk chocolate. The quality, flavor and texture of the ice cream was top notch, or "ultra-premium," as you might expect from New Orleans Ice Cream Co. and the cookies were chocolaty and crunchy, offering a pleasing juxtaposition to the creamy ice cream.

The Po'Boys were generally delicious and I look forward to possibly trying them in other flavors like the Coffee & Chicory or Ponchatoula Strawberry if they decide to expand the line. My only request would be to offer them with a dark chocolate coating too, because I just can't seem to shake the ache for an It's It. 

Tuning out

I want to be her again. Blissfully unaware, biding my time, plotting my escape to a place that finally understood and accepted me, exactly as I was. This moment was only one year before I made the move. This moment was three years before the levees broke.

My heart is wrenched recalling this moment because it took too damn long to find my home. My heart is wrenched recalling this moment because it was pulled from my grasp after only two short years of euphoria

My heart is wrenched because this place, while it still somewhat resembles the paradise I lost, is rapidly becoming the place I ran away from ... and there's nothing I can do to stop it.

Should I run again? Or should I stay and find whatever solace I can among the remnants? Where would I run to? 

Breaking my fast at Biscuits & Buns on Banks

*Warning - Today I will be venturing into the realm of "too much information." If you can't hang with a bit of over sharing, I suggest you ramble on.

In a vain attempt to make a long story short, I suffer from recurrent UTI (a.k.a. urinary tract infection). Over the past several years, it's gotten so bad that I have developed allergies to all of the typical antibiotics that "cure" UTI. That's right, I break out into hives (or worse) when ingesting Cipro, Macrodantin, Bactrim (or any of the sulfa drugs), Doxycycline etc. I've tried many different remedies or forms of prevention, everything from non-sweetened cranberry juice and herbal extracts to D-Mannose, which, for those of you wondering, doesn't work.

Anyhow, around two years ago I decided to cut out breads and pastas thinking perhaps my frequent infections were due to a gluten sensitivity and at first it seemed to work. A magical combination of herbal tinctures and eliminating gluten from my diet afforded me 8 glorious months without even one UTI.

Then one day, for no reason, they came back.

Frustrated, but determined, I became more vigilant in my gluten-free quest, increasing my intake of preventative herbals and diet options like cranberries, blueberries and yogurt, but to no avail. At minimum, I still get UTIs once every two months.

Throwing up my hands, I decided finally to fuck the gluten-free approach. Here I was denying myself one of the greatest pleasures on this gorgeous, green earth and for what? I didn't lose any weight and my UTIs were back with a vengeance. What was the point?

So, when I say I was breaking my fast that morning several months ago when I first visited Biscuits and Buns on Banks, I'm being quite literal. Not only was I having breakfast, I was breaking a year-long, oh-so torturous fast from bread and let me tell you, I couldn't wait to have a biscuit.

When I sat down in the small, but colorful dining room in the back, all I could think about were biscuits and I was pretty sure I was in the right place to score some. I was about to place an order for a side of biscuits, butter and jam when the waitress comes to the table with a complimentary plate of mini-biscuits with Steen's-laced butter! With my goal in reach, I narrowly managed to restrain myself just long enough to place an order, after all, I couldn't just gorge myself on free mini-biscuits, right?

As the server walked away, I pretended to be focused on creaming and sugaring my coffee when in reality, I couldn't keep my eyes off of the biscuits. By the time the waitress returned with my entree, all three buttery biscuits had been demolished with only a few crumbs remaining in the aftermath.

My entree was the fried andouille hash cakes served with country-style potatoes and topped with two sunny-side-up eggs and a Creole cheese sauce.  Now, I am generally not a fan of cheese sauce unless it's smothering a paper tray full of tortilla chips sprinkled with jalapeno peppers, but surprisingly, I did enjoy this particular dish in spite of the sauce, Perhaps I was still giddy from the biscuits...