patti

Heath bars, 5th Avenue, Reese's Peanut Butter Cups, Almond Joy, M&M's plain and peanut, haven't tried the pretzel ones, would probably love them.

The first time Daddy brought home a sack of oysters and the four of us kids sat around him as he shucked them and doled them out. I needed a saltine and some Tabasco in order to take the first plunge, but after that, it was all good. Actually,anything Daddy brought home was usually a treat. Hot & spicy boudin & cracklins, tamales from the local street cart, watermelon to split open and share. Mama's seafood gumbo, fried chicken, & her Sunday pot roasts. Daddy's fried fish (fresh caught), boiled crawfish & crabs. He was heavy handed with the pepper and that's the way we all liked it. Tomatoes and cucumbers from his garden, and one year, an overflow of cantaloupe. Root beer floats, my first fried shrimp po-boy, oh man, heaven on French bread. Our Louisiana grandmother would put a little bit of coffee in our morning cereal when we visited. With the sugar and the milk, it was cafe au lait rice krispies. So good! My grandmother's corn macque choux, so delicious, a little sweet and a little heat. I wish I could have it again. Her fig preserves, gooey, sticky, just sweet enough. Great on toast, fabulous on ice cream. Oh, and the hand-cranked ice cream. The grandkids took turns sitting on the lid for the final turns as the cranking got more difficult. Our Texas grandmother always had hot homemade biscuits and sausage for breakfast. Sweet tea by the pitcherful. Pinto beans and hot buttered cornbread. Simple, but perfect.

Rice pilaf with toasted pecans, mushrooms, sweet peppers = yum.

Not only artistry, but humor! I love it.

We call those dinners "every man for himself."

One pound ground beef and and one pound ground pork, a few splashes of Worcestershire sauce as well as a few dashes of Tabasco. Couple squirts of ketchup, a handful of chopped onions & peppers, a little minced garlic, some breadcrumbs, one egg, and a heavy hand of Tony Chachere's seasoning. Mix, form into a loaf, and place in a baking dish that has been sprayed with Pam. I usually bake mine in a 9 x 12 pyrex dish and not one that the meatloaf just fits into. C'est bon! Ooh, I forgot. Sometimes I lay a couple of slices of bacon across the top.

My mom always added the trinity to the blazing hot roux and it helped cool it down. My mother grew up in Texas and she learned to make gumbo from my father's mother (whose first language was Cajun French), so this technique has been around a long time (grandma died at 94 two years ago).

Great looking gumbo, just the color I like. I hope there was enough for leftovers!

I thought Wingstop was a chain. We've got one here, in Lafayette, LA.

When I was growing up, we didn't call them "broken yolk" egg sandwiches, simply hard fried egg sandwiches. While toasted bread is essential to most of my favorite sandwiches, not so for the fried egg. Soft white bread, hard fried egg fried in bacon fat with crispy and browned edges, mayo on one side of the bread, mustard on the other. Salt and lots of black pepper on the egg. Heaven.

Do you mind watching a video? How to shuck an oyster

My Talk About Good cookbook is being held together with duct tape. Time for a new copy, I guess. In addition to Talk About Good and Talk About Good II, the series includes Tell Me More and more recently, Something to Talk About. I don't have the last one, but will probably acquire it soon.

Perhaps a maven, a marketer and a connector could make nutria the next big thing. We've got an overabundance of them here in Louisiana. Come and get 'em. Cheap!

I cheated and used Tony Chachere's seasoning. I can't help it; it's a sickness.

Are y'all seasoning the brisket before browning? ETA: Never mind, I now have the Cook's Illustrated recipe and yes, I season before browning.

Dirty rice aka rice dressing.

I think it will be a bountiful satsuma harvest for us this year.

Thank you, Brooks. I know this thread isn't about defining what is Cajun, but I wish more people would understand that it isn't New Orleans. I will leave it at that for now.

Get great tasso here: poches

We picked up some boiled crawfish earlier in the week for $1.99 a pound. They were a beautiful size and had a good flavor, but were very hard to peel. And the vendor had assured me that they wouldn't be! I kind of knew better, but bought them anyway. I did NOT get my fill of good crawfish this season.

Fantastic blog! I might even try to replicate a few of the dishes you prepared. Thanks so much.

I knew of steak fingers long before chicken fingers. A steak finger basket, to be exact, although I can't recall the name of the place. Dairy Queen comes to mind, but I don't think that's it. At any rate, perhaps the chicken fingers has more of a connection to steak fingers than chicken nuggets.

It's a pleasant sounding name, combining the first letters of their home states. Is there some unwritten rule that only official state abbreviations can be used for such things?

Six month old candy conversation hearts leftover from Valentine's Day.

The river crabs look surprisingly like crawfish! Do my eyes deceive me? Fantastic blog, btw. You and César make a gorgeous couple.