New Orleans: Beignets and Plantations

Mike's President's Club trip for work this year was in The Big Easy.  We loved it.  It is not a place we would have necessarily visited on our own, or would bring the young'uns, so it was great that they picked it for us.  I loved the Louisiana accent we heard everywhere.

We started the first morning of the trip with a visit to Cafe du Monde--"the place" to have beignets.  We waited for over an hour, and never actually received our order before we had to leave.  Thank goodness some friends came and we got to have one of their beignets before we had to run to catch our shuttle to our first excursion--plantation tours.

We passed several plantations on our way to our first stop at Laura: a Creole Plantation.  This map shows the plantations that existed along the Mississippi River.  All of the plantations in southern Louisiana grew sugar cane.  Cotton was grown in the north.

We saw beautiful architecture, blooming flowers and learned lots about the history of the plantations.

There were 69 slave cabins, and approximately 175 slaves worked and lived here.  They have a slave roster posted.  I noticed one particularly interesting name to our family--Patience.

They have posted the rules for how slaves should have been treated.

We then visited Oak Alley.  It is a 25-acre, beautiful plantation, lined with 28, 300 year-old live oak trees.

This is the slave registry at Oak Alley.  I'm a little obsessed with all things Antebellum South, Civil War, Abe Lincoln right now, so this was fascinating.

They have begun reconstructing the slave quarters.  By law, the cabins had to be 16 feet by 16 feet.  They usually built them duplex-style, where two slave families lived.

Just as we began the trip, we ended it at Cafe du Monde.  After the awards dinner, we went with a group of friends to have some farewell beignets.

They certainly make sure you have plenty of powdered sugar.  In fact, the floor is covered in a powdered sugar dust.