Posts Tagged “louisiana”

We had so much fun today at Avery Island, home of Tabasco!

This is one intense, Tabasco-loving place. Our adventure began at the Tabasco Visitor Center, where we were treated to a few small exhibits and a brief talk and video explaining Tabasco’s history and how it is made.

Okay, between you and me, I’ve never been that big a fan of Tabasco, and neither has Brian. But how it’s made is really interesting! First it starts with these peppers:

They are Tabasco peppers and they are grown there on Avery Island and also in South America (where there is a similar climate and they can grow year-round). They save seeds, though, so even the South American peppers are originally from Avery Island. All the peppers are hand-harvested, and workers are each issued one of these:

That is le petit bâton rouge, a stick painted the correct shade of red for perfect pepper ripeness. When the peppers match le bâton, they are harvested, then they are ground up along with a small amount of salt (also from Avery Island; there is a huge salt mine underneath the island — allegedly the salt mine is as deep as Mount Everest is high) into a “mash” :

The mash is then placed into these white oak barrels to age (at this point, at the South American pepper farms, the barrels are transported to Avery Island — all Tabasco ages at the warehouse there). The barrels are topped with a thick layer of salt from the island and allowed to ferment. The salt layer allows gases to escape without letting any impurities in. They sit there aging for about 3 years!

Another interesting aspect is that they are a no-waste company (which they reminded us many times!). When the barrels are no longer usable, they are chopped up into wood chips for cooking and sold in the extensive on-island gift shop.

Anyway, after aging for 3 years, the mash is then strained, mixed with vinegar and more salt from the island, and placed into another barrel where is it stirred intermittently for the next 28 days:

And then, finally, it is bottled and sent all over the world!

We got to walk through a wall of windows into the bottling plant; they were bottling the jalapeño variety that day. Yay!

The original Tabasco flavor is the only one that goes through the aging and everything, by the way.

After all that, we visited the gift shop where we could sample a bunch of products. They had all the Tabasco flavors, of course, but also some products made with Tabasco, including chili and ice cream. Brian tried some Tabasco cola, and I think the pictures tell the whole story:

We also learned that the word tabasco is actually from a Native American word meaning “land of hot and humid,” which quite aptly describes the climate on Avery Island. Check out the steam on Brian’s glasses and the camera lens from this photo snapped on our way out of the chilly, air-conditioned gift shop into the Tabasco-like outdoor climate:

Now, that was a lot of fun for one day, but it wasn’t over yet!!

The dude who invented Tabasco, Edmund McIlhenny, has spawned generations of family members who remain heavily involved in Tabasco sauce production. They select the best pepper plants and still own the company and live on the island and everything. But seeing how they are all zillionaires due to the wild success of Tabasco, it’s no wonder that some of the McIlhennys have chosen a slightly different path. One such McIlhenny was Edmund’s son Edward, who ran the company from 1898-1949. He did a good job of managing Tabasco, but he also pursued his other passions as a naturalist and conservationist, and he established Jungle Gardens on Avery Island as a refuge for the snowy egret (the refuge helped pull the snowy egret back from the brink of extinction). Jungle Gardens also contains many interesting exotic plants, a nearly 1000-year-old Buddha statue, and a lot (and I mean A LOT) of these:

YAY! I love an alligator. They are so cute! These are just little ones, too, so they are not very scary, although I’m sure they could hurt you if they felt like moving, which they did not because it was nine million degrees out. We didn’t see any snowy egrets because they had already migrated south, but we saw some other exciting birds:

And some really large bamboo:

After all that, we finally headed north toward Jackson, Mississippi. We have family events going on for the next few days, then we’ll be regrouping. Stay tuned!

We made a couple of exciting stops on our way from Houston, Texas, to New Iberia, La.

First, we stopped at the Fire Museum of Texas in Beaumont, Texas, because it has this:

That is the world’s third largest fire hydrant (it’s 24 feet tall).

We continued on I-10 to Louisiana!

We then visited the Frog Capital of the World, Rayne, La.

We had dinner at Prejean’s in Lafayette before heading down to our Days Inn in New Iberia. We have some exciting things planned for the next few days, but we may not have internet until after the weekend… so don’t worry if you don’t hear from us. We’ll be back!

Hi everyone! Sorry for the delay in updating the blog. Hope none of you thought we were still stuck in Vicksburg! We’ve been home just over a week, and of course I have a backlog of photos to post from the journey.

First of all, we went through Louisiana, and I owe you this:

Also, remember how I mentioned that it was snowing in Vicksburg? Well, here you can see some snow falling on the Super 8 pool (which was open, of course, since the day before had been 80 degrees or something!):

We did eventually get to Jackson and had to continue recovering from being sick. I had a little relapse, etc. I won’t bore you (or gross you out) with the details… but it did, unfortunately, prevent us from attending most of the events we had come to Jackson to enjoy. Alas! We still had a really nice visit with my aunt and uncle, and they took us to a very cool art event hosted by the Mississippi Museum of Art’s New Collector’s Club. It was a talk and studio tour at NunoErin studio in Jackson. They make very cool swamp-inspired, interactive artwork with thermoactive materials — basically, furniture, pillows, and wall panels that change color when warmed by body heat. Here is one of the artists demonstrating how to use a hair dryer to get the color change effect on some wall panels:

It was fascinating and really fun. Thanks, NunoErin!

Eventually we got back on the road to DC… and I have a few more state signs for you, including the elusive Virginia sign!

(By the way, we went through a little corner of Georgia, but they don’t bother to put up a welcome sign there. What gives, Georgia??)

In Virginia, we stopped at the Natural Bridge Exxon and saw this tiger:

It’s a far cry from the Itasca Wampus Cat, eh?

This tiger was made by Mark Cline, a fiberglass artist whose work we always see everywhere. In fact, we have several stories about Professor Cline… but they’re stories for another time.

Anyway, we’re moving to Austin. Wait, what? No, seriously. We are. I got a job. We got an apartment. Movers are coming a week from Tuesday. Soooo things are pretty busy and crazy. But we’ll keep you all posted as much as we can. Keep checking back!!

Well! We’re going to have to tell you more about Austin later. We had a bit of a development. We were supposed to leave Austin on Friday morning and head to Jackson, Mississippi. Instead, on Thursday night, we were both up all night with a horrific stomach virus. I’ll spare you the details, but trust me, it was not pretty. We had to stay an extra night in Austin, and then we tried to make it to Jackson yesterday — and we almost made it, thanks in no small part to a refueling stop at my aunt Catherine’s in Shreveport, Louisiana. But when we got just outside Vicksburg, we became concerned that the place we were headed in Jackson might contain some new and terrifying strain of the virus we had just endured. Plus, IT WAS SNOWING (!!), so we decided to stay put. So, this morning I’m writing this from the Vicksburg Super 8… and we will be going to Jackson (for real this time) later this morning. We’re both feeling significantly better, but still far from fabulous. Being sick is as awful as littering!

We were in New Orleans for less than 24 hours, and the entire time it was freezing cold (which was very, very surreal), but we still totally enjoyed ourselves. As I mentioned before, we stayed right on Bourbon Street — not for everyone, obviously, but we had fun. When we arrived (around 10:30pm), we bundled up in our warmest winter coats and hats and everything and strolled around the French Quarter. It was either totally dead (for the Quarter) or really hopping (compared to everywhere else in the universe), depending on your point of view. We turned in just before our noses froze off and were lulled to sleep by the party noises from the street below.

In the morning, we did the same thing, basically, but we also got food (from Acme Oyster Bar) and visited the New Orleans School of Cooking so I could buy some filé powder. Guess who we saw there?

Yep: John Schneider, best known for his portrayal of Bo on the Dukes of Hazzard (which I didn’t know, actually, but Brian filled me in). He looks more like this now:

He and his family (we assume) had just finished taking a cooking class and were in the shop buying things while we were there. Yee-ha!

And also:

We actually managed to work in two beignet visits in our 15 (or so) hours in NOLA… once when we first arrived (thanks for being open 24 hours a day, Café du Monde) and then again right before we left.

We had to cut our visit a bit short, but we still enjoyed our little taste of New Orleans. And then…

We arrived in Mississippi last night and are now fully entrenched in “family time.” Laissez les bons temps rouler, non?

Happy holidays, everybody!

Hey! I guess I didn’t update the entire time we were in Austin. Sorry! But it was awesome!

First of all, we got more cupcakes:

These are from Hey Cupcake, which is an adorable converted snowball stand. Very nice, Hey Cupcake.

And then we went to the Trail of Lights!

It’s a big event with a very large crowd, especially on the night we went (which was a lovely evening with temps in the 70s — the day before it had been really cold). It’s a walk-through Christmas light display in a large public park.

A couple of my favorites were these local pride pieces — cartoon versions of Austin skyline buildings:

…and future–space bubble Austin (this one was in a display with Space Santa):

I also enjoyed this rainbow/pride reindeer:

We also ventured up to Round Rock to go to Round Rock Donuts:

The donuts get their yellow/orange color because the bakery uses only farm-fresh eggs (apparently most commercial donuts are made with powdered eggs). I have to say, they are very delicious, and the woman who helped us was so nice (like everyone in Austin. Although I guess this was in Round Rock. Anyway.). When she heard we were from out of town and had never been there before, she went back and got us some complimentary freshly made, warm, delicious donuts, even though we had already paid for our order. Thanks, Round Rock Donuts!

Most of our time in Austin was spent walking around and exploring neighborhoods. Very fun and interesting for us, but not so good as fodder for blog entries! So you just have to trust me, I guess. Now we’re in New Orleans in the surprisingly lovely Ramada Inn on Bourbon Street, enjoying some debaucherous street noise.

Speaking of hotels, by the way, we stayed at the Extended Stay America on Guadalupe in Austin and it was great — clean, cheap, plenty of parking, and excellent location. Plus everyone there was really, really nice. (Did I mention everyone in Austin is nice? And well dressed?) We totally recommend it if you need an affordable place to stay downtown!

One more thing… we have been having some serious technical issues… so I will try to keep you guys updated, but unfortunately I can’t have complete confidence in my ability to do that!!