Happy Holidays and Merry Christmas to You and Yours

It was yesterday when I had been quite busy working on pinwheel and peanut Christmas cookies.

I got to back and forth to the grocery store, Walmart Neighborhood. Actually not that far from my home, about 15 minutes by driving.

Fig 01- A gift with a snowman

I did grab and pay for the Hershey's Kisses holiday for decorations, but when I was about to use them, I could not found them.

No where to be found.

I spend over than one hour to look for them. Try to find at every corners and rooms of my house.

Fig 02- A Christmas decoration

Fig 03- A Christmas ornament

So, I run back to the grocery store and got them, another one hour:

- 15 minutes to go
- 30 minutes to search and pay the items
- and another 15 minute to drive back home.

Hectic days!

It is Holiday Season!

The Christmas Eve!

Now, Holly Jolly Christmas!

Wishing you and family have wonderful holidays and very Merry Christmas.

# Previous postings:

- Will Wild Horses Able to Ride Out Hurricane? - Part 1 – Nature 12
- The Prodigy Kid - Marla Olmstead’s Paintings – Part 1 - Art 3
- Will Wild Horses Able to Ride Out Hurricane? - Part 2 – Nature 12
- New Parents often Faced Depression – Part 1 - Healthy Life 15

Annual Christmas Parade in Our Neighborhood

Fig 01- A float at our neighborhood parade several years ago

Our city, Baton Rouge, have a lot of parades and festivals from January to December every year.

Some of the parades are:

- Mardi Gras
- Krewe of Oshum
- Annual Christmas parade
- Columbus day
- St Patrick day

You may read posting about Mardi Gras parade and its relate activities at previous postings:

- Local Event Called as “Mardi Gras” In Louisiana, USA
- Wreaths for Mardi Gras in Louisiana
- A Traditional Product of Louisiana – King Cake – Part 1
- A Traditional Product of Louisiana – King Cake – Part 2

Fig 02- A street at neighborhood

Our neighborhood through residents’ association administers annual Christmas parade.

Fig 03- A corner of town

Whoever may participate in the parade:

- no fee
- donate US$22 for portion of mandatory parade insurance.

Fig 04- Residents preparing for parade several years ago.

Parade routes just short distant, about 1.9 miles (3.km). Circling our neighborhood areas.

Fig 05- Just for illustration

Parade starts at 10.00 AM and complete promptly around noon, if weather conditions are good.

Fig 06- Wooden ginger man, illustration

Some parts of parade and festival area:

- floats
- cars
- music
- and other entertainment.

Interestingly, participants may rent a float with 25% discount price through our neighborhood association.

Have your neighborhoods organized any parades or festivals?

# Previous postings:

- Hurricane Ida Hit Our Neighborhood – Nature 11
- Will Wild Horses Able to Ride Out Hurricane? - Part 1 – Nature 12
- The Prodigy Kid - Marla Olmstead’s Paintings – Part 1 - Art 3
- Will Wild Horses Able to Ride Out Hurricane? - Part 2 – Nature 12
- New Parents often Faced Depression – Part 1 - Healthy Life 15
- The Prodigy Kid - Marla Olmstead’s Paintings – Part 2- Art 3

Old Car – Chevrolet Monte Carlo 1970s

Fig 01- Chevrolet Monte Carlo 1970s

When we visited a garden in our city, we saw an old car coming and then driver parks the car at the parking lot.

What make me wonder:

- how old is the car?
- how to maintain this old car?

By searching through internet, I found interesting facts about Chevrolet Monte Carlo:

- the first generation of car was made in 1970 to 1972
- 130,657 cars are built in 1970
- 5742 cars are built as Super Sport (SS) cars in 1970
- new brand car price was US$3,123

Yes, some cars, especially SS 454s are well maintain and still running on the street now days.

Are they sold in the market today?

Fig 02- Lonely parked at the corner

Fig 03- Photo from back

Yes, there are bargaining in the market with plenty of interest between buyers and sellers.

You might surprise that 41% owner of 1970 SS Chevrolet Monte Carlo is young generation or generation X who born between 1965 to 1980.

How the price?

Based on reported by Greg Ingold (2021 in Hagerty Media) that the best performance car was sold with price tag US$ 100,100.

# Previous postings:

- Summer, be aware with Traveler's Diarrhea – Healthy Life 7
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- Grass in Our Yard during Hot Summer

A Traditional Product of Louisiana – King Cake – Part 2

Inside King Cake

Previous posting (Part 1):

- A Traditional Product of Louisiana – King Cake – Part 1

Vietnamese variety cake is quite lighter and flakier.

I like this variation, since less sugar, easy to eat and tasteful. We could find in the store called Dong Phuong Bakery, locates at eastern city of New Orleans.

The bakery made 30 thousand cake during Mardi Gras festival in 2017. Very much compared to other bakery on that occasion.

The bakery sells many kinds of King cake, some of them are:

- cream cheese
- pecan
- and classic cinnamon.

The price is quite higher during festival, depend very much on size and filing:

- Small size about US$16
- Large cake cost US$ 29
- Extra large price US$ 39

Colorful of King Cake

I never made the cake by myself. Just to give you an idea of King cake ingredient is following:

- Dry yeast
- sugar
- butter and milk
- egg yolk and salt
- grated lemon zest and nutmeg
- flour, cinnamon
- and colorful sugar.

Be careful, caloric content is high. One slice of cake could contain 321 calories.

# Previous postings:

- How Many Animals Are Expected to Extinct by 2050? - Nature 4
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A Traditional Product of Louisiana – King Cake – Part 1

King cake of Louisiana

One of specific products of New Orleans, Louisiana is King Cake. The colorful and very sweet style pastries.

The cake is made, eaten and associates with Mardi Gras celebration. It was tradition from French since 300 years ago.

The cake is commonly sugar (colorful sugar) on the top, but there are many variations of filling of inside the cake.

What inside the King Cake is depend on the countries tradition outside French.

In Louisiana, it is commonly bean inside. Moreover, many cakes are filling with combines of several these items:

- chocolate
- pear
- apple
- cheese
- banana
- and almond.

A kind of food, illustration only.

There are a lot of migrants from many countries settled in New Orleans. One of them is Vietnamese.

The Vietnamese communities in New Orleans, Louisiana have their own varieties of King Cake.

What different between local and Vietnamese varieties?

# To be continued to Part 2

## Previous postings, in case you are interesting:

- Wild Flowers in the Backyards – Nature 1
- Wreaths for Mardi Gras in Louisiana
- A Tropical Plant Called Pineapple – Food 1
- A chocolate as a Gift for Valentine’s Day

Growing Tabasco Peppers in My Yard – Part 2

Fig 01- Flowers and buds are growing

Before reading this part, please read the previous post (part 1):

- Growing Tabasco Peppers in My Yard – Part 1

Then, watering every day, but avoid too much watering such as not let water standing on the surface of soil.

Since I start with plant (baby plant), it is just take around 20 to 30 days or less than one month to harvest the first pepper.

I am quite happy with this result. Unbelievable for me.

If we start from seed, it would take little longer, around 80 to 90 days to get first harvesting.

My plant no more than 40 cm (1.3 feet) tall, but it can reach to 1.5 m (5 feet) tall.

We could see the pepper colors changed: start from green, then turn to:

- yellow
- orange
- and bright red.

Fig 02- Peppers are ready to be harvested

The red means the fully ripen stage of Tabasco peppers.

Have You Tried to Grow Tabasco Peppers in Your Yard?

What the results?

# Previous postings:

- A Bouquet from Combinations of Flowers and Vegetables
- Do You Visit Car Service Center Every Year?
- Why the Free Meals Program could Attract Kids to Come to Library?
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Growing Tabasco Peppers in My Yard – Part 1

Fig – Four Tabasco peppers from my garden

I plant a couple of Tabasco peppers in my backyard, just for fun. I bought “baby” plants from Walmart nursery with reasonable price per plant.

Tabasco is a kind of chili variety with scientific name Capsicum frutescens. People said the chili come from Mexico.

It is said that Tabasco is good for:

- sauce
- pepper vinegar
- chili powder
- cayenne peppered

Tabasco is categorized as medium hot chili in term of Scoville Heat Units (SHU). Natural Tabasco chili is about 3,750 SHU (Sriracha2Go, 2021)

However, Tobasco brand pepper sold in the commercial market has scale range is from 30,000 to 50,0000 SHU. Quite high.

Moreover, I think that it is quite easy to take care the plants. Just put the plants in a suitable soil (moisture soil) with a little bit organic fertilizer.

# To be continued to Part 2

## Previous posting:

- Cold Morning at My Workplace, Baton Rouge, USA
- Local Event Called as “Mardi Gras” In Louisiana, USA
- Wreaths for Mardi Gras in Louisiana
- A chocolate as a Gift for Valentine’s Day
- Grass in Our Yard during Hot Summer

Visiting the Oldest French City in Louisiana – Part 2

Fig 01- Cane river crosses the Natchitoches city

This post is the second part, the first part was:

- Visiting the Oldest French City in Louisiana – Part 1

As the oldest French settlement, many buildings are well maintain. We may find several old building such as:

- townhouses
- basilica
- general mercantile store

The city is small with population of 18 thousand people only. However, there are a lot of interesting things in this town.

What I like are:

- old market
- national park in front Cane river
- foods
- scenery

Fig 02- The oldest shopping mall

Fig 03- Meat pie, special food of town

We may go shopping just by walking to small and old stores in the oldest shopping complex of the city.

As people told me, we should visit at least two stores:

- the oldest mercantile store
- the oldest meat pie restaurant

National park in front of Cane river is calm and beautiful place to enjoy. We may watch attractions in the river if we lucky enough.

Have you visit the oldest French settlements outside Europe?

# Previous posts:

- Making Perfume in the Organic Chemistry Laboratory - Science 1
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Visiting the Oldest French City in Louisiana – Part 1

French press coffee maker, just for illustration

You might know that New Orleans as a French city in Louisiana. It was established in 1718.

But, the first settlement was in Natchitoches city in 1714, about 258.2 miles (416 km) from New Orleans.

French has huge territory in America continent, from Canada to Mississippi river to Gulf of Mexico.

Due to some problems to manage territories, include slavery revolution in Haiti, then trigger French authority to sell part of them.

USA government negotiated to buy French territory called as “Louisiana purchase.”

French then sold to the USA in 1803 with price of US$ 15 million for 828,000 square miles area.

It was equal to US$18 per square mile only. Purchasing was considered very cheap on that time.

One of oldest building in the town.

Purchased regions include 15 new states, they are:

- Arkansas
- Missiouri
- Iowa
- Oklahoma
- Kansas
- Colorado
- Louisiana
- Minnesota
- Montana
- Nebraska
- New Mexico
- North Dakota
- South Dakota
- Texas
- Wyoming.

# To be continued to part 2

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