Back in February, I went on a class trip to New Orleans. It was sandwiched in between Super Bowl and Mardi Gras. We did many great things, almost all of which involved eating, which is one of my favorite pastimes. Anyway, here are some of the highlights of my trip:
The first place we visited was the Tabasco Factory in Avery Island, Louisiana. I would share some pictures, but I have a surprising lack of those in my repertoire. So long story short: we saw how they make Tabasco hot sauce and then sampled Tabasco Coca-Cola, Raspberry Chipotle chocolate ice cream (which was to die for, I might add) and jalapeno vanilla ice cream (which tasted like jalapeno potato chips and was fairly strong). Anyway, once we actually arrived in New Orleans we went to Mardi Gras World where the floats are made for the Mardi Gras parades and various other parades around America.
We got to see a bunch of the different pieces being worked on. Lte me tell you, there are spectacular! The elephant was one being worked on for MGM. Yes, the movie production company. The gorilla is a regular to Mard Gras parades and is redressed every year for the parades in New Orleans. There were many other random pieces to be used in different parades.
They also showed us where they paint and paper mache all of the pieces being created. I came to find there were many familiar faces around the place including the likes of Abraham Lincoln, Belle and the Beast, and the Tin Man.
In this parade palace, we also met a Frenchmen, whose name alludes my memory, who creates these works of art from beads. I'm sure you can imagine that New Orleans has many beads, and he finds a way to recycle the hoards of beads within the city.
After all the excitement of parade floats and beads, we were off to dinner at Mulates. We indulged in gumbo and bread pudding, along with some dancing from the jazz band that arrived a little later in the night.
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