Beignets, blues and blisters

Tales of our food vacation

Some people take active vacations. They ski in the winter and maybe bike in the summer. A lot of people go somewhere to hike or swim. My family takes food vacations. It's a tradition.

This year we went to New Orleans.

The trip was the latest version of our biennial family reunion. With my brother and sister on the West Coast and one nephew in Minnesota, it takes some planning to pull off a family reunion, so we do it every other year.

My sister and her husband usually find the lodging in the form of a house rented through an agency. This year, when all three of my grown children insisted on bringing significant others, we needed two houses. Luckily they were an easy walk away from each other.

Even though we have a relatively small family, we've never been able to get every member in one place for a reunion. This year it was the nephew who missed out -- using a brand new great-nephew as an excuse. Like he couldn't pack up a newborn and bring it along ...

The first family reunion was in Seattle, where we had fresh salmon from the famous open-air market. Two years ago we went to Rhode Island and had steamed clams and lobster.

New Orleans opened up all new categories of food.

First we went to the annual Sachmo Summer Jazz Festival and ate the Cajun version of county fair food. We tried the sausage on a stick, oyster tacos and frozen adult beverages served in convenient insulated bottles. We also heard some jazz, but that's really my sister's thing. I was along for the food.

The first morning in New Orleans saw eight of us trekking to Cafe Du Monde and then trekking back covered in powdered sugar that had started out on the beignets we ate. We walked everywhere for four days because parking was so hard to come by.

We had po' boy sandwiches in the French Market, margaritas in Margaritaville and we sampled jambalaya and gumbo at the House of Blues.

Our trips always include one big home-cooked meal, but we were disappointed when we realized crawfish were out of season. We settled for shrimp boiled with corn on the cob, andouille sausage and hot dogs.

We drove the 12 hours to NOLA and the 12 hours back, which gave us an excuse to indulge in car food.

What is it about long car rides and beef jerky? It's not something I would eat at home, but we seem to always crave it in the car. And Diet Coke. And cheese popcorn. One thing that hasn't changed about taking the kids on a long car ride, the car is still a mess when we get back.

Actually, taking the whole family back and forth to New Orleans required two cars, two bags of car food and two small coolers full of Diet Coke. I didn't actually buy juice boxes this time though, but I did resurrect the portable DVD player that plugs into the cigarette lighter.

Traveling in two cars gave us the chance to one-up each other with texted photos. I hope they weren't intercepted by any law enforcement agencies, who might not have understood the joke involved with a non-drinker appearing to hoist a gallon of bourbon up for a quick slurp.

So we finally got home, sore from walking and then riding, with feet full of blisters, phones full of photos and a few extra pounds. It was a great family vacation!

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Atkins is a Weekly Vista reporter, an occasional columnist and a sporadic blogger.

Editorial on 08/20/2014