Happy Mardi Gras!

The Mardi Gras season kicked off last weekend. My friend Suzy is a native New Orleanian. She grew up in "Uptown" & loves Mardi Gras. Suzy & her husband Matt are going on the cruise with us & it was quite a task to convince her to miss 3 days of parades to join us. Last night was The Krewe of Muses parade. It's an all women krewe & they throw shoes. Not just any old shoes. Gorgeous, glittery decorated shoes. Everyone wants to catch one. Me, my friend Jackie, her daughter Allie & our other neighbor Alexandra met Suzy for the parade last night. Suzy's sister & brother in law own a restaurant on the famous Magazine St. called Vizards. Her brother in law is the executive chef & the parade rolls right in front of the restaurant. If you've never been to Mardi Gras you don't realize just how awesome it is to have a place like this to watch the parades from. Besides having a place to park you also have a clean bathroom to use!! Not to mention food & drinks. I had the house salad which was sooooo good.

Excuse the pics but as you can see the place was dimly lit & I was using my phone. The House salad is Vizards House Salad herbs, mixed greens, sprouts, bleu cheese, pecans, apples & dressed with balsamic vinaigrette. I don't even eat apples & these were delicious. After the salad I decided to get the Crabmeat Nelson appetizer for my meal. I'm still taking medicine & wasn't real hungry.

It was delicious! It was fried eggplant, jumbo lump crab, crimini mushroom, green onion with béarnaise sauce. It was really pretty too but I cut into it before I remembered to take a pic!

I've decided that I'm not really a parade person. I don't have the patience. We had fun but the parades are always stopping. Whether it's because a tractor or something broke down or someone on the float paid the driver to stop at a certain spot so they can throw stuff to their family. There ends up being a lot of standing around. The women in this particular parade were chintzy with their throws too. This is what I caught.

Yeh, that's it. If you're not familiar with Mardi Gras most people get more than this from the first float. We saw several shoes but weren't lucky enough to get one. You must also be aware of your surroundings when you're at a parade. The first bead that Suzy attempted to catch beaned her in the forehead & she was bleeding all over the place! Then there are the bands that are swinging instruments. Some of them get a little carried away with their dancing. I got a little too close to for comfort to a trombone at one point! 

Toodles!