feast of heaven

i've been sleeping a ton for the last few days. leading a trip takes a lot of energy. but i had a really great time last week, and so did everyone else, praise the lord. it's hard for me to figure out where to start in talking about my experience, beyond declaring that new orleans is awesome. so i'm gonna start with what everyone knows ... food. when i think about what heaven will be like, i think it'll be something like this lunch the James family brought us on our last day of working on their daughter's Dominesha's home. they brought us boiled crawfish, crabs, fried chicken, red beans & rice, corn on the cob, biscuits and shrimp. we ate and ate and talked and laughed and ate some more. we spent the whole afternoon visiting with each other, and the neighbor randy, swapping stories, learning how to properly crack open a crab. southern hospitality at it's finest.

in keeping with the theme, i will now list everything i ate.
for the first time:
boiled crawfish
boiled crab
cheesy grits
crawfish bread (a bread baked with crawfish and 4 kinds of cheese)
seafood okra gumbo
crawfish etouffe
crawfish pasta
crawfish beignets w/ remoulade sauce
(we were lucky enough to be there during the louisiana crawfish festival, we could walk to it from the church we stayed at)

classics:
fried chicken
shrimp po'boy (basically a fried shrimp sandwich, what could be better?)
red beans & rice
beignets w/ cafe au lait
waffles from the waffle house, a southern establishment
mexican hot chocolate in a waffle cone from the creole creamery (the spiciest ice cream i've ever had. amazing.)

southern food is damn good. i'd love to live in new orleans; i think i'd end up being 300 pounds. but i'd die happy, that's for sure. more on new orleans to come.