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Laissez Le Bon Temps Rouler At Disneyland

March 1, 2021 · 13 Comments

Minnie Mouse leading the second line, circa 2012

If I have to pick one favorite thing I have done at Disneyland, it has to be the year my husband and I made it to their “New Orleans Bayou Bash” in 2012. Not only was this a great a event to attend it was also a great time of year to go as February is typically a slower time at Disneyland.

Chip and Dale posing with some Mardi Gras beads!

Performances

From February 10-March 11, 2012 you could attend various shows in Disneyland’s New Orleans square. One performance was the New Orleans Traditional Jazz band leading a second line that wound its way through New Orleans square. Eventually the second line ended at a stage and then Disney characters joined in with the band.

Minnie gettin’ down to the sweet sounds of a clarinet

An additional performance you could see was the Princess Tiana’s Mardi Gras Celebration. This show featured characters like Princess Tiana, Louis and Prince Naveen performing music from “The Princess and the Frog.”

Meet & Greets

Any good event at Disneyland has to include the ability to meet and take pictures with your favorite characters! At the bash you were able to meet Minne/Mickey in adorable Mardi Gras gear, Princess Tiana/Prince Naveen, and Chip & Dale. These meet and greets took place at the beautiful “Court des Anges” in New Orleans Square. Sadly due to the expansion of Club 33 in 2013 the court is no longer available to the public.

Special Food Options

Food is a big draw to Disneyland events. Sadly, don’t have pictures of any food! I do remember wishing they had king cake! In a post from Disney Parks blog described bacon cheddar popcorn, bouillabaisse with lobster, French-style chicken-pork sausage sandwich, Mardi Gras cupcakes, and banana fosters cheesecake.

New Orleans Style Decor

To get Disneyland goers into the spirit of Mardi Gras, New Orleans square was decked out in beads, masks, and even some musical instruments. Personally, this is one of my favorite things that Disney imagineers do as it really make you feel like you are in New Orleans. One thing that you may notice about the decorations is that most are in traditional Mardi Gras colors which are purple, green, and gold. These colors came to be 1892 in the during the Rex Parade. The parade defined purple to represent justice, green to represent faith, gold to represent power.

Thanks for joining me on that little trip down memory lane. Here’s hoping we can celebrate Mardi Gras in Disneyland next year!

Virtual Talks at the Walt Disney Family Museum: The Life of Harriet Burns

February 4, 2021 · 11 Comments

The Walt Disney Museum is a gorgeous museum about the life and career of Walt Disney in San Francisco. It is unfortunately closed at the moment but they having been making the most of it with virtual events such as their “Happily Ever After Hours,” which are interviews with artists, actors, filmmakers and more whom are affiliated with Disney in some way. Most recently I have watched a presentation by granddaughter, Haley Clair and daughter Pam Burns-Clair of the legendary imagineer Harriet Burns.

Harriet Burns was the first female imagineer hired in 1955 who started as a set painter for the Mickey Mouse Club prior to joining WED Enterprises in the Model Shop.

Below are some of fun things I learned in the presentation:

She crafted many of the birds in the Enchanted Tiki Room. Harriet had difficulty finding fabric that would move so it would look like the bird was breathing. Harriet ended up using fabric similar to what was used in cheer-leading uniforms that she saw Walt wearing around the model shop one day.
Harriet’s Birds in The Enchanted Tiki Room are very durable, in fact the original “Jose” is still used in the chorus of birds!
Her husband’s nickname was “Bonesy” because of a model skeleton Harriet had to buy during a lunch-break and kept in the backseat of their car.
There where no women’s restrooms at the model shop. Walt decided to build one just for Harriot but she never got to use it because the office moved to Glendale.
Harriet has her own window on Main Street in Disneyland which advertises “Handmade Miniatures.” Both Walt and Harriet collected miniatures.
In the Disneyland attraction “It’s A Small World” Walt wanted all the Hyenas to have fluffy hair and after struggling with their hair Harriet permed all their hair.
Even after Harriet retired she never spilled the beans on the secrets of Disney’s attractions with her children or grandchildren.

I’m so grateful I had the opportunity to join this virtual presentation. I felt like I really knew Harriet through seeing her amazing talent as well as style (she always sported a beautiful neck scarf) in the pictures and stories her family presented. Be sure to check our The Walt Disney Family Museum’s calendar for future virtual events you can attend!

Aunty Sandy’s Delicious Maui Banana Bread at Home

February 2, 2021 · 9 Comments

Please Help Maui! Aunty Sandy has set up a Gofundme and bringing supplies directly to those who need it! She also has a Amazon Wishlist of supplies.

Other ways you can support Maui:

Maui Humane Society

Maui United Way

Maui Food Bank

Hawaii Community Foundation-Maui Strong

Hawaii American Red Cross

I believe you can not do a post about Maui without some sort of gorgeous image of nature. So above is a quick snap of the Garden of Eden which is on the Road to Hana. Now, that I got that out of the way I can tell you about the absolute best banana bread I have ever had that was at Aunty Sandy’s Banana Bread.

When my husband and I were visiting in 2019 we decided we HAD to to the Road To Hana which 64.4-mile-long stretch of Hawaii Routes 36 and 360 which connects Kahului to the town of Hana in east Maui. In my research Aunty Sandy’s Banana bread came up numerous times as the best banana bread spot. We visited the stand and walked away with 6 mini loaves! We couldn’t help it, they smelled so good and plus traveled well.

Aunty Sandy’s banana bread stand was started by Aunty Sandy Hueu in 1983. Later in 2003 her daughter Tammy joined the business. At the moment there are two stands to get your banana bread fix, one in Keanae and the other at the Plate Lunch Marketplace across from Costco.

Recently (and thankfully I might add) Aunty Sandy’s rolled out a baking mix you can order online to ship to the mainland. Cost of the mix is $8.00 and shipping to the mainland depends on how many mixes you order but it starts at $15.05.

I decided that bread would make great holiday gifts this year for some of my friends. A mix makes about four mini loaves. I wanted to followed the recipe and technique exactly the way they make it on Maui. Thankfully Tammy was available to answer all my questions!

First I prepped the bananas, I started with 5 and let them ripe on the counter. Then I peeled the bananas and placed them in a ziplock bag to freeze. The night before I was to bake I took them out and placed the bag in a bowl so it could defrost overnight.

Then I boiled 1 cup of unsalted butter in a pan over the stove. I dumped the boiled butter into the mix and stirred well. I greased some mini loaf tins I got from Safeway and poured the mix in.

I then baked the mini loaves for 325 degrees for 15 minutes and then switched the loaves in the oven and baked for another 20 minutes as my loaves were still soggy in the middle. I let them cool for 5 minutes and froze one loaf for later! I found the mix and directions very easy to follow and the loaves were absolutely amazing! Not the same as being on the island but close!

Soul Soma SF Opening

December 31, 2014 · 17 Comments

A few Monday’s ago I got a opportunity to try the new Soulcycle studio in Soma from Racked SF. Please ignore the unflattering picture of me (I have to work on my workout clothing poses apparently). As you can tell from my Flywheel post I love spin classes and I have been to soul in SF on union street and experienced soul in NYC.

Soulcycle’s goal is to have everyone ride as a pack to the beat of the music. No stats here, resistance is based on feeling and keeping up with the instructor and those around you. Classes are a bit more on the rhythmic side with moves called tapbacks, push ups on the handlebars, and a section towards the end of class with weights. Cost at Soul is not cheap as your first class is $20 any after are $30 and you must have spin shoes. If you don’t shoes are $3 and there is also a cost for Smartwater bottles. I was very excited that all these costs were included for this special class!

Although it is called Soma studio I would consider it more financial district or Embarcadero but this studio is a vast improvement over the union street location. On union street you literally can’t move once you arrive, it is so crowded so forget about changing or showering. In Soma there is room to sit and relax before class, change into your work out clothes an what I imagine financial district folks will like it that there are ample showers. One thing to note to note is looks like there is one two women’s restrooms. I can see this being a issue for those packed classes.

Another magical thing about this location is close proximity to Pressed Juice. Pressed offers some amazing juices from greens to nut milks. They have two seasonal juices for the holidays, one was was a apple pumpkin and the other was a spiced almond which was magical. Even more magical was that Soul offered free juice coupons so you better believe I took advantage of a free seasonal juice.

The class was taught by Jenny Gaither who had a TON of energy in her class. Because the spin studio is much bigger than the other locations she was often found getting off the bike and skipping around. I also really liked how she came by and helped any of the newbies with bike set up. Her class was nicely varied (especially the playlist loved the Taylor Swift and old school tunes) with a fair amount of time climbing on the bike and several rounds of tapbacks.

I also got the opportunity to meet a great Bay Area blogger named Cassie be sure to check out her blog here. She has some great posts about yummy healthy snacks (HELLO Chocolate Chip Cookie Dough Energy bites) and much more.

I’m thankful I got to try out the new SOMA digs and since I have some great Santa’s in my life (Soul Gift cards!!) I’ll be back soon!

Soul Rebels At The Brick And Mortar

August 11, 2014 · 30 Comments

I have mentioned in a earlier post my obsession with New Orleans and especially the music that originates from there. I have seen The Soul Rebels once before at SXSW but only for the last 15 minutes of their set because the venue was already filled to capacity by the time I arrived! I had heard about this show last minute as I was checking tweets around Outside Lands and wasn’t attending so thought this show could be the next best thing.

The Venue

I had never been to the Brick and Mortar before so I did a quick social media cruise through before I arrived. It only took a few reviews on Yelp and Foursquare to make note that most fans complained about the staff, especially the door crew. I can second the rudeness of the door people as I got told to “Move and close the door” upon arriving and waiting in line. A simple please would have made the world of difference. Brick and Mortar is also extremely small and hot. During the entire opening act (that played for over an hour) we were stuck in front of the bar which is the exact wrong place to be. You are either dodging folks going back to get a drink or coming back into the crowd with drinks. I learned quickly that in order to actually enjoy and see the performer that off to the side is where I should be.

The Crowd

I also got stuck in the middle of a young couple’s first date and a crew from NYC that made it clear they weren’t interested in the music. During Jon Cleary’s opening set I was either overhearing the couple’s life story or a gal spouting off how amazing but cold SF is. Once the annoying couple left to buy more drinks I turned to the gal next to me and said “Do not let them back in.” Glad she agreed.

The Music

The opening act was Jon Cleary, a British piano player from New Orleans. He plays a nice mix of funk and R&B with his trio. Unfortunately it was a bit hard to enjoy his set squished between a first date and a loud group from NYC. I also thought his set was a little too long and it’s hard to enjoy mellow music in such a tightly compacted crowd. The Soul Rebels didn’t hit the stage until 11:30 which is a wee bit late for someone who had been at work since 8am and would have to leave by midnight to hit Bart in time to get home. Despite all this I enjoyed their set. They played highlights from the New Orleans brass band songbook and some covers from their latest mixtape that I linked in this post. Even though I was exhausted The Soul Rebels gave me energy to rock out like the best of them. Their horn hooks are tight and their vocals are also on point. Hopefully the next time I seen them I’ll be able to enjoy a full set without having to be anywhere the next day and no Bart to catch because I feel like they are a great reason to sleep past your alarm the next day.