It is Sunday, January 11 and there are only 320 days until Black Friday.  Remember it's never too early to stake out a good spot to be ready for when the doors open.  Today we recognize the birthdays of Francesco Parmigianino, Clarence Clemens and Mary J Blige.  On this day in 1693 Mt. Etna erupted in Sicily, in 1813 the first pineapples were planted in Hawaii and in 1989 140 nations agreed to ban chemical weapons. In Albania it is Republic Day, in Chad it is Independence Day and in Switzerland it is the Meitli-Sonntag Festival-Women in Villmergen War.

The lovely Elaine and I have just returned from a short trip to New Orleans. It was fantastic!  We walked the French Quarter for several days, enjoying the sights, the shops and the music.  We had beignets our first day, as a snack, and two other days for breakfast.  They were fantastic.  What are they you ask?  They are a treat made from a deep-fried choux pastry dough.  This is a light dough used for such treats as eclairs and French crullers. A single serving consisted of three beignets and were covered in what seemed like three pounds of powdered sugar.  What better way to start the day than to go toCafe Du Monde and have fried pastries, covered in sugar and a cup of coffee with chicory. OMG!!

My brother and two of his friends were there for the ceremonies surrounding the 200th anniversary of the Battle of New Orleans.  We explored the French Quarter together and had a great time.  We had the opportunity to hear music throughout the day from small street groups that just set up and played wherever they felt like being.  Some of them were quite good.  In fact, one was good enough that we bought their CD.  We ate Po' Boys, Muffalettas, gumbo, pralines and other tasty treats. We sampled the pralines in a number of stores, just to be sure we got the best ones.

For those of you who are wondering, I will give a quick explanation of the aforementioned foods. The Po' Boy sandwich was created in 1929, when two brothers, former streetcar conductors who opened a sandwich shop, developed it to feed members of the Carmen's Union who were on strike. Union members were given the sandwiches for free.  The name came from a comment made by the brothers when they saw one of the striking men coming.  A brother said, "Here comes another poorboy."  The sandwich is made with French bread and filled with shrimp, oyster, crab, beef or ham.  I had one that was beef done debris-style, meaning the meat was shredded.  Yum!

A muffaletta sandwich is one that originated among Italian immigrants in New Orleans.  The bread is a round, flat loaf, somewhat similar to focaccia.  The traditional style sandwich has layers of marinated olive salad, mortadella, salami, mozzarella, ham and provolone. Gumbo is a dish that originated from Louisiana Creole people during the 18th century.  It typically consists of a strongly flavored stock, okra, meat and/or shellfish and seasoning vegetables, which can include celery, bell peppers and onions.

Pralines are a sugar candy made from nuts and syrup.  They are a combination of pecans and caramelized sugar.  American pralines can also contain milk or cream and are softer, resembling fudge.  We wanted to be sure that we got the best pralines possible, so we went into as many stores as we saw (and there are a number of them) and sampled as many as we could.  We finally settled on what we thought were the best.  I won't tell you the name of the store. This way you can have the fun of finding your favorite.

I did get to do one of the things that was high on my New Orleans to-do list.  It is legal in New Orleans to take out alcoholic beverages and drink them on the street.  One day, after we finished lunch, we got cocktails to go and walked along with our drinks.  Can you imagine the mayhem if this was allowed in, for instance, New York City? Of course, if they did allow it, they would spoil the whole thing by finding a way to tax or surcharge it.

We also took the opportunity to drive to the town of Houma,to visit relatives that we had not seen in 50 years (we don?t get to Louisiana often).  It was a great experience.  Our cousin took us on a tour to see things that most tourists never see.  We went to his house for dinner and met a whole bunch of cousins and had a great time.  We ate chicken and sausage gumbo and bread pudding with whiskey sauce, talked, laughed and just enjoyed being together.  I was touched by the way they treated cousins they hadn't seen in so many years. That is what family is about.

I did, of course, have the opportunity to do some people watching while I was there.  One person in particular was interesting.  When we landed in New Orleans, I needed to use the restroom.  I went in and was standing at the urinal.  I happened to glance over and the man at the urinal next to me was texting with both hands!  Yes, I said he was using a urinal and texting.  One thought that came to me was that, if he dropped his phone, I would not want to have the rice served at his house.  For the balance of our trip,whenever one of us needed the men's room, we said that we had to go text.

Our fact this week tells us that for every 230 cars that are made, one will be stolen. The problem that I see is how do you know where in the count your car comes.  To further confuse the issue, what if you buy a pre-owned (or as we used to say, used) car.  How do you know where it came in the count,was the one car in its group already stolen?  This is too much to deal with.  I may just have to go eat a praline.