NOLA- My Love Pt. 3

Our conference was over on Saturday and our flight did not leave until late Sunday afternoon, so we again had a lot of time to sight see.

After the conference we walked around the French Market. I've been told that this is a great place to get the famous muffaletta. I am not a big fan of deli meat so I did not have one. They look amazing and are huge. If you are a deli meat with olive sandwich fan then you should definitely try one.

French Market

Muffaletta: Wikipedia

On my last post in pt. 2 I forgot to mention the most amazing experience. That night we went to Preservation Hall. The highlight of the sightseeing part of the trip. This is an amazing jazz experience that truly encompases New Orleans. There is a small stage with 5-6 members of a small jazz band. Each night there may be different performers. There are 3-4 small, old school church pews and pillows on the floor for guests to sit. The rest of the area is standing room only. We had to stand but I was grateful. I was able to dance and move to the music. Afterward we took a picture with the singer/trumpet player. We found out that he was a retired Math teacher. Go figure! It was an AMAZING experience and if you are in New Orleans this place should definitely be number one to visit.

After the french market we went to The Praline Company to get some pralines. New Orleans is famous for their pralines so we definitely wanted to try some. I did not really care for the pralines at The Praline Company. I am not sure if it was the lack of various types of pralines, they only had 3 different kinds, and it was like asking for the waitresses first born to try one. I mean come on...you know people are going to ask to try. When I finally ordered my three she made it a point to give me the ones that I asked for samples from. *Major side eye! They did, however, have a restaurant attached and the food looked pretty good. I am not sure if I would try it though.

The Praline Connection

We ended up going to another amazing praline bakery called Southern Candy Makers. To me these were the best pralines in town and I did not get the one I tried. The sweet lady behind the counter shrink wrapped my package for me to take home. LOVE.

After walking all day we rested for a bit at the hotel, changed, and walked to Dominica at the Roosevelt Hotel. Oh my Lord this restaurant was amazing. The owner is professional Chef John Besh. Light appetizers of various breads, olives, cheeses, meats, and jellies were distributed along the table. The roomie and I ordered the Wild Mushroom pizza which was topped with wild mushrooms, fontina, bacon, and an egg in the middle. Other friends at the table ordered the Margherita and Duck pizzas. I tasted the duck and it was superb. For dessert the waiter brought out small chocolate truffles covered in powdered sugar. I was in a food coma so I could only eat one.
I will definitely go to this restaurant again and again. The atmosphere, service, and prices were great for New Orleans. Our entire pizza was around $14 and we had a ton left over.

The next morning we packed up and headed to the oldest Catholic church for morning mass.

Afterward we met up at Desire Oyster Bar. I had the shrimp and grits. It was HEAVEN! I actually found the recipe online and I am totally recreating it. This dish consists of a creamy red sauce with peppers, onions, garlic, and Tasso ham. HUGE marinated shrimp and extra creamy grits make it complete. Best Meal EVER!

I LOVE this city. Even though I did not get a chance to eat at the restaurant on my bucket list (Emeril's). I know that I will be back again and again to try not just that restaurant but many more. The culture of New Orleans is amazing. Granted we were in the tourist section I feel like the citizens truly love their city. There is no other place like it.

You know I had to do it one last time. So greedy yet so amazing!

Side Note: This was a great conference for us to attend. I am so grateful that my team mates/school mates were able to attend. Though the conference was not at all what I pictured it to be, I did take with me at least three important things. Things that I plan to implement in my classroom and share with the rest of my team that did not get to attend.

1. We, as 1st grade teachers, are the foundation. The way we teach Math and the vocabulary we use are the building blocks for life long learning.

2. Rome was not built in a day. Learning takes time and effort. We cannot expect for our students to come to us already knowing all of the knowledge we "expect." That is why we are TEACHERS!

3. Have fun! Learning should be fun. Use manipulatives, create and play games, and let students use their own minds. Worksheet after worksheet is not fun.

Check out my girl at Simply Swarbrick. She has a great recap on the NCTM conference that we attended. Find out how she became famous while there. 

NOLA- My Love Pt. 2

Hopefully I can finish the trip on this post but I highly doubt it. As I was speaking to my father this evening I thought about the conversation that I had with many of the people on my trip. I love food....not just because I am hungry.....but because I like the way it is prepared. I like to taste something and figure out how it was constructed. The downside is that I have a really hard time keeping my thoughts to myself. I find that I speak out loud to others at the table. Case is point-Mr. Lovely could care less about how food is prepared. As long as his belly is full after eating he is fine. He could care less about what type of extract or spice is included. Many of the ladies on the trip shared the same passion for food as me. We enjoyed many amazing restaurants and spent time discussing ingredients and flavors.

Side note- I accidently broke the screen/lens on my phone so when I take pictures it shines a weird light. I didn't want to take my actual camera so all of these pictures are kind of blurry.

Our conference began so we did not have much time to go to breakfast and lunch. My roomie and I ate some amazing protein bars, tea, water, turkey jerkey, etc. so that we would not have to spend a lot on breakfast. She introduced me to these new bars by Nature Valley :

These are soooooo good. I later compared them to lots of other protein and meal replacement bars and these by far are the best for you. They have 10 grams of protein and they are not high in sugar, carbs, or calories. Since we were doing a lot of walking I definitely enjoyed these. Thanks roomie for the recommendation.

For lunch the conference provided us with po'boys (turkey and ham sandwiches), cookies, and packets of mayo and mustard.

So the next day I ditched the fake po'boy and gave it to the homeless. Many other people felt the same way so they also gave away their meals and followed me to the first ever Popeye's on Canal St.

I'll take a two piece, white, spicy, with mashed potatoes and a sweet tea. I wish I would have gotten the red beans and rice. It was so good.

The conference was cool but not what I expected. I wanted to learn a little more about what other states are doing and how they are handling the new Common Core Standards in comparison to our Texas TEKS. There were a few workshops that I really loved.

This book is great for teaching students about adding more/on and patterns.

The math problem from the book. The teacher wanted to give us a more advanced problem and we had to figure out the formula. Yeah I pretty much sucked at it.

I totally need these!

Here is how you use the stuff from above. It balances the numbers. It's great for teaching about combinations.

We later went to eat at another amazing restaurant. We took the St. Charles Line Trolly (not sure if that is the correct way to write it). We saw so many amazing homes, landscaping, and eateries. They unfortunately were working on the trolly line so we had to stop and take the bus the rest of the way until we got to the restaurant.

Once we got off of the bus we went straight into The Camellia Grill. It is a quaint little diner-like restaurant. There are maybe 45 seats in the whole restaurant. Everything is made on the grill and the waiters wear white coats with black bowties, classic! I had an amazing swiss cheese and mushroom burger with fries and a chocolate pecan pie that was to die for. Yes they cook the pecan pie on the grill!

Total phone pic!

On our way back after feeling like we ate two small baby elephants we stopped at Tulane University. This is a beautiful school.

We didn't have much time to look around because it started thundering pretty hard. We decided to bypass the thunderstorm and started walking back to get the trolly. We got to see a lot of the houses up close. They were remarkable. I would post picks but I don't want to be sued! J/K

The last two restaurants need their own post. You will just have to wait......

NOLA- My Love

I recently had the wonderful opportunity to visit an amazing city. New Orleans, La. I went to a math conference hosted by NCTM. It was really engaging and I was grateful for the opportunity. I learned a lot but I left assured that what and how I am teaching my students is definitely beneficial and we are ahead of the game. I am hoping to improve even more in this new year and use at least 3 new things I learned.

New Orleans has got to be number one on my list of places that I have always wanted to visit. I would make plans to go but I never got around to actually going. I went with some of my current and new team members and some of the 2nd grade team members. We had so much fun and I am so grateful that I got a chance to spend time with these lovely ladies. They all have such unique personalities.

Here we go:

We first arrived to New Orleans on a Wednesday afternoon and we were ready to explore as soon as we got there. We stayed about a mile away from Canal St., which is a very "important" street in NOLA. It's were a lot of the fun happens! We walked everywhere!! I had blisters for days and had to ditch the cute sandals and dresses for jeans, workout clothes, and tennis shoes.

After getting checked in at the hotel we headed off to a quaint little restaurant called Cochon......OMG! Best restaurant...hands down!! We all sat at a round table and ordered amazing side items, sandwiches, meat pies, etc. We each took a plate and buffet styled it. I had (don't judge) mac and cheese, creamy grits, fried oyster and bacon sandwich, crawfish pie, eggplant and shrimp dressing, twice baked potato, and maybe some more that I can't remember. This food was so amazing. I highly recommend going to this restaurant.

After it was over we walked around and saw the sights. We made our way down to Burbon St. and then headed to Cafe Du Monde for a late night snack of beignets and cafe au lait. I die for beignets. This was my first time having them and I swear I ate my weight in them.

We walked home (to our hotel) and discussed what we would eat the next day. We agreed to try Mother's and Cafe Beignet. The conference did not officially start until 1:30 that day so we had more than enough time to play. They had some light hors d'oeuvres at a meet and greet for the conference but we all knew that that would never fill our tummies. We headed out to Mother's, which was right down the street. I had shrimp creole with cabbage and collard greens. I tasted the crawfish etouffee but it could have used a little seasoning...tabasco. I also tasted the Ferdi Special. This is a great po'boy but I would never eat it on my own. This is definitely something to share with a friend or more.

Me channeling my inner Beyonce. I sat at the same table LUCKY!

We continued to walk around afterward and check out a few sites. We had to be up early the next day to start the conference so we decided we would meet up at Cafe Beignet to try their beignets and cafe au lait.

These are by far the best beignets. They are doughy and yummy! I did not like the cafe au lait as much as I did at Cafe Du Monde though. I would definitely try to mix the two for the perfect amount of Heaven!

I will continue to post more pics soon in my recap of NOLA. For now I am missing Luther.....if you have not checked out this show you are really missing out. It's on BBC and stars Idris Elba.

Until next post!

Some of my favorite pins

I absolutely LOVE Pinterest. It is like a little heaven on my computer. Whenever I am in need of any ideas....I just go to Pinterest.....BING......and I am given a plethora of material. I always make sure to read reviews though. I have made a few items from the recipes and they did not come out as good as they looked. I found that many times if you read the reviews there are people who add or delete ingredients or measurements from the original recipe. This is really helpful.

Here are a few of my favorite Food pins:

I have been seeing these all around pinterest lately. I love stuffed shells and the fact that these are taco stuffed shells makes them look even more tasty! Here is the link: Busy at Home

Please tell me that these do not look divine! There are really healthy too.....Chicken Parmesan Meatballs. There is not a link to this but I am sure they are not hard to recreate. If any one knows the link to this please let me know.

I have made this and let me tell you it is GOOD!!! I did not make it in the crock pot because I like my noodles al dente. I instead cooked it on the stove in my dutch oven. Here is the link: Pinterest Healthy Foods

Here are a few of my favorite Fashion pins.

I own similar clothing so I wanted to pin this to remember to wear it. This high-low thing is really taking off. Here is the link:Style Pantry

I die for this arm candy!!! Here is the link: Purseblog

I also own these items except for the polka dot shirt. Here is the link: Outfitposts

I am OBSESSED with Sun Kiss Alba's hair. She has an amazing You Tube channel where she explains her skin and hair care regimine. Here is the link: Beautylish

Of course there are a ton more pins that I could put on here but I don't have the time.
It's Mr. Lovely's Birthday on Monday and we are doing a small cook out for him. Ribs, Hot Dogs, Dirty Rice, Salad, Chips, and CAKE!!! I'll be sure to take some pics.