An Update on Life

Sometimes I say to Matthew, "Let's take a walk."

And he says, "Why?"

Me: "Because I need to get out of the house."

Matthew: "Do I have to go with you?"

Me: "Yes." (with a pouty face)

Usually, that doesn't work, but not too long ago I managed to drag Matthew along for a walk around the gardens at the Norton Art Gallery. Last year, we kind of poked through the azaleas around the front of the museum, but there's a whole beautiful park back behind the building. It was gorgeous. This is Matthew during our walk. He's striking his "show me love" pose for the camera. See why a walk is more fun with him along?

A few weeks ago we went home for a weeklong vacation. Lucky for us, our trip coincided with the Gordon's Chapel pork barbecue. I took this picture just because I thought it was nice to come home to a traffic jam on Nowhere Road. Traffic was backed up as people stopped in for some chopped pork and hash.

During our visit, I instigated a family picnic at our favorite spot at Victoria Bryant State Park. Picnics at the park are one of my favorite things, and I've really missed them these last few years.

We also caught a rousing game of machine-pitch baseball while we were home. Landon did a great job—he must get his skills from uncle Matthew.

And my mother, in her desperation for a grandchild, tried to smuggle this precious baby girl out of the hospital in a pillow case. Only kidding. We were all very happy to meet Allison Beth, daughter of Adrienne and Alan. (But seriously, I'd watch this lady closely when she visits next time!)

(Sorry about the odd formatting. It's so frustrating that the "preview" looks nothing like the actual post.)

Ta-dah!

I've recently wrapped up a very fun project for the Louisiana Culinary Trails program. Technically, it was a brochure, but I'm thinking of it as my own mini-magazine (hey, it is 32 pages!), and it will be in various visitors centers and hotels around the state. So, when you eventually make your way out to see us, pick one up at the welcome center. But whatever you do, do NOT tell me if you spot a typo or any other sort of error. Please, I beg of you.

My job was to create a new approach for the guide, which had previously been filled with lots of long, running text. It's still chock-full of info—restaurant suggestions, culinary experiences, profiles of state culinary icons, recipes, maps, and more—but hopefully the info is now packaged in a much more interesting and user-friendly way. Of course, I had the assistance of a very talented, and thankfully very detail-oriented, designer who did a terrific job taking all my parts and pieces and making them look good. And we put together the whole thing using 100 percent stock photography, more than 90 percent of which was free.

This really was a fantastic project. It has helped me learn more about Louisiana, and I have spoken to so many kind people. I hope to get to travel the trails soon myself. I have quite a lengthy culinary checklist of foods I need to try—Drago's oysters, AM Market's poboys, Cafe Des Amis' zydeco breakfast ...

Chinglish

I have been working on a post to show how much fun we had during our trip home last week, but my pictures are not loading correctly. Until I figure out what's going on, entertain yourselves with this slideshow from The New York Times featuring botched English-language signs in Shanghai.