This past weekend in New Orleans was full of good food, friends, and lots of fun. Thank goodness Mark and I took today off to rest and recuperate.

After taking my car to the dealership for a oil and fluid changes, we began our short drive to NOLA. We spent a couple hours down in the French Quarter before getting all “gussied up” and heading to Lüke for a happy hour drink with a friend and dinner.

While the food was delicious, the experience was a bit disappointing because our waitress was so pushy. I guess it was our fault for making reservations during happy hour, but I felt so rushed into choosing my entrée. Still, the shrimp “en cocotte” with jalapeño cheese grits and andouille sausage was fantastic, as was my golden beet salad with blue cheese and pistachios.

After dinner we headed over to the Saenger Theatre to see Book of Mormon! This is the first show since the theatre was renovated following Hurricane Katrina, and it looked beautiful.

The show was hilarious! It’s not my favorite Broadway show by any means, but we’ve listened to the cast recording many times and still found it quite funny. In fact, I was nearly in tears for much of the show!

After the show, we met up with some friends (whom we haven’t seen since their wedding 2 years ago) for drinks at the Roosevelt. We ordered some sazeracs in the Sazerac Bar but meandered over to the Fountain Lounge for some food (and to avoid the crowd). Our waitress brought a few extra sazeracs to us that the bartender kept making, so we weren’t complaining. It was a good night!

Saturday we slept late and enjoyed another beautiful morning and afternoon in the French Quarter. Since our favorite lunch spot, Stanley, had a 2-hour wait, we grabbed lunch at the Gazebo Café and walked along the river for a while. The weather was absolutely beautiful—I just love fall along the Gulf Coast!

We visited some other friends and their new baby (Mark’s godson, whose baptism we’ll attend next weekend). It was great to catch up. After our visit, we drove to Kenner for the Deutsches Haus Oktoberfest and met up with same friends from the previous night. Right when we entered, we saw an old friend of my mother-in-law’s (the German Princess—she’s German, though not really a princess 😉 ). I think the last time we saw her was our own wedding, so it was great to catch up for a bit.

We each enjoyed a Spaten Okoberfest and some delicious food. I didn’t take a picture, but we had smoked pork loin with apples and sauerkraut, red cabbage, German potato salad, and some amazing bread! We also shared a hot pretzel and piece of German chocolate cake before heading back to the hotel.

Sunday we grabbed breakfast at the hotel before walking down toward the Superdome fore the game. There were a lot more Buffalo fans than I’d expected. After grabbing a few beers in Champion’s Square and getting Mark’s Bobby Hébert jersey signed by the “Cajun Cannon” himself, we found our seats (amongst many soon-to-be sad Bills fans).

I was really worried at the beginning of the game, but my lucky Graham jersey paid off. It was a really fun game, and of course it helps that we won!

Post-game, we picked up a few essentials and had lunch at Bud’s Broiler before driving back home.

It was nice to get away for a few days, and I’m glad we only have a 4-day work week ahead of us. Have a marvelous week, friends.