HungryC

Head-on IQF can be hard to find anyway, locally. Most of that stuff is shipped away & defrosted to be sold as near-fresh. Call Bayou Bounty, a seafood market near my house. They ship crawfish, shrimp, crabs, etc. Maybe they can help you out. Or check out the list of more than 20 vendors at Westwego, LA's "shrimp lot":an outdoor market full of nothing but seafood. You'd have to contact the vendors individually, but if you really want head-on frozen, it might be your best bet.

I'd still suspect bugs: they were inside, and chewed their way out.

No, baby, definitely NOT from New Orleans. Bayou born & raised. Folse is indeed a good storyteller. I just think that the books are a bit inflated. The "Encyclopedia" book's intro section reminded me of a junior-high LA history textbook. The graphic design & photography are a bit dated as well. I do think he's a brilliant businessman, a good chef, and a nice representative of LA. Endless kudos to him for kick-starting the 4-year culinary program at Nicholls State.

Is it yet another unwieldy coffee-table tome stuffed with superfluous photos? I tell ya, Folse must have an excellent cut-rate deal with a SE Asian printing company--you know he wouldn't keep cranking out those gift books if he wasn't making serious bank on 'em.

I have to say, I'm not a fan of boiled crawfish with seasoning crusted on the outside. That dry seasoning on the outside is a SW-LA style thing...I want the seasoning inside my crawfish, not on the outside burning my cuticles as I peel. I prefer to heavily season the boiling water with a triple-threat: powdered crawfish boil, the sachets of whole spices, and liquid boil. (Plus heads of garlic cut crosswise, quartered lemons, and whole yellow onions.) To me, the liquid boil is essential--it's made from spice oils in an alcohol base. I do the boil-soak method, but don't do the steaming at the end. For really big boils, I like to boil a few pounds to "season" the water with crawfish flavor, then boil the corn (I don't like it to be too spicy or too mushy or waterlogged), then boil more crawfish & potatoes. Fussy, I know.

Why is all seasonal cooking automatically "californian"? I realize that Prudhomme & Bienvenue's published works may not demonstrate seasonality, but actual cooking on the ground in Acadiana has always been highly seasonal & locally harvested. Seasonal eating habits are readily apparent in south LA populations who know absolutely nothing about Cali cuisine and whose cookbook collections don't extend beyond the local church's spiral-bound fundraiser book. So many products of coastal LA have specific, limited availability--we eat waterfowl in the fall & early winter during duck season, venison makes an appearance during deer season, etc. (And in the case of waterfowl & deer, wild game can't be sold commercially, so eaters are either hunters or plugged into a social network of hunters.) The same seasonality is true for commercially raised crawfish, blue crabs, brown shrimp, white shrimp, citrus, and so on....

In much of the south, it's traditional to offer coffee with dessert. And it's never too hot to drink coffee. Dunno if the event is seated or buffet, but it should be easy enough to set up a coffee bar, or to have servers offer coffee with dessert/when the cake is served. I'm with Mom. Besides, she's the client: if she wants coffee, you tell her how much it will cost to serve coffee...if it is more work, then charge more money. Seems simple enough. RE: arti sweeteners...make sure you have pink, blue, and yellow (Sweet-n-Low, Equal, and Splenda). It is NOT a huge expense, and the point is to be hospitable, isn't it? If the event is extremely formal, you can get the sweeteners packaged as "cafe sticks", which are a bit more classy than the standard paper packets. Here's a link to the Splenda cafe sticks....I know all three come in cafe sticks, as I see them at events and in restaurants.

I have both Link's book and the new Besh book. I wouldn't consider the Besh book to be Cajun per se; the recipes reflect more Creole & New Orleans, as well as the chef's own style. The Link book is probably more representative of Cajun cooking across south Louisiana. Note: these are pretty subtle distinctions, I admit.

Last week, I made non-football food (beef-vegetable stew). It worked so well I decided to go non-traditional again this week: pork sausages on a bed of french green lentils, pan-roasted turnips, and baked sweet potatoes. I think I'm gonna regress for the "big game" and cook a ridiculous number of chicken wings. And a gumbo. And probably some king cake, too.

Of course our local restaurants serve Gulf oysters....umm, eat locally and all that? John Besh's restaurant Luke has plateaux des fruites de mer, with your choice of oysters, mussels, littleneck clams, shrimp, ceviche, etc. Here's Luke's starters menu with details. If you must have non-Gulf coast oysters, try GW Fins, which is one of the only places in town to offer non-indigenous oysters.

Previous poster is probably right....I live in the "sugar bowl" of LA, and invariably the cheaper sugar on store shelves is not labeled "pure cane". In the interest of supporting the local sugar industry, I always buy pure cane sugar.

Some of my fondest memories of dorm life involve cooking in the hall kitchen with my roommate & suitemates. We'd fry chicken in crumbs of whatever was on hand (purloined crackers, leftover potato chips, really stale bread), steam artichokes, and cook whatever stuff people brought from home (one memorable feast included several pounds of crab claws). Of course, we made boxed mac-n-cheese (with real butter & cream) and other simple things, too. I have vivid memories of a multi-layer birthday cake with icing flowers, made for a classmate. At the end of last semester, I was the guest speaker at a dorm dinner--the students made everything from pumpkin cream soup to lasagne to pecan pie to hummus. We talked about local farmers' markets, local food, and their own food traditions. But previous posters are correct: most electric appliances aren't allowed in individual rooms. Generally, modern dorms include some kind of kitchen facility on each floor, with a stove, oven, microwave, and sink (though not a fridge). Have your son find out the rules before you spend any cash. (He might be allowed to keep his appliances in the hall kitchen rather than in his room.)

Also, Eula Mae Savoie, co-founder of a Cajun food business built on sausages. The Savoies couldn't afford to feed their hogs one year, and thus entered the sausage-making business, which later grew to include all sorts of packaged Cajun foods. I had jambalaya for lunch today, made with Savoie's hot sausage.

Candied bacon bits Salted caramel sauce

Long before any mainstream baking trends toward "no-knead", Malgieri included a high-hydration, no-knead focaccia bread recipe in his "How to Bake" book. I had great success with the recipe, which spurred me toward other breadbaking adventures.

RE: fruit, my in-ground tree produces a dozen or so fruits each year. If you're growing one indoors, you may get a few fruit, and you can increase your yield a little if you hand pollinate, but you'll get more if you cross-pollinate with another citrus. (No insects indoors to do the work for you!)

My kaffir lime grows outside, in the ground. It's about 10' high, three years after planting (it was in a 5 gallon pot and 4' high at planting). I do have a varigated lemon outside in a pot, and I learned from it that citrus need quite a bit of room in the pot. My varigated lemon grew fine for a few years, then limped along & didn't produce fruit for a year or two. I repotted it in a huge pot, and it's happy again. So watch out for your KL--you don't want it to get root-bound. Grow lights are essential, too, in a NE winter.

I've had decent luck in freezing vietnamese style pistolette rolls. Split before freezing and stick inside a zip top bag (press out all the air). Defrost for a couple of hours at room temp for soft rolls, or reheat from frozen at around 250 degrees in a toaster oven for crispy results. I freeze all sorts of homemade bread with great results.

Can anyone help me out with a few suggestions on the Amalfi coast? Probably staying at an agriturismo in Minori, will have a car. Bonus points for good coffee/gelato suggestions.

Hogshead cheese is definitely better when made at home.

The food market at the Campo is pretty touristy; head to the Testaccio market if you're seriously shopping for ingredients. David Downie's "Food Wine Rome" (2009, part of the Terrior series) is worth buying; it's not just a compendium of restaurants, but also food & wine shops, coffee bars, pastry shops, chocolatiers, and gelateria. You could certainly plot out several interesting & tasty walks based on his recs. The book is organized by neighborhood/area, with addresses & general directions.

I'm with previous posters: I would have to graciously decline to accomodate her, given such a lengthy list of restrictions. You're a restaurateur, not a custom chef. To soften the blow, maybe you could refer her to a friend or colleague that does private-chef work...someone who can work with her restrictions. Perhaps it's someone's idea of a practical joke?

When I read the subject line, I thought, "the pizza could only improve". Then I read your list of supposed improvements--proof that things can always get worse. Sweeter sauce? A garlic-flavored crust? Blech. I certainly ate my share of Dominos when it was the only thing available (why do Dominos franchises pop up in rural corners of our country? The franchise buy-in must be low.), but I can't say I ever chose it over almost any pizza alternative (excluding Papa John's, which I won't eat. Ever.)

Research, research, research. Good food is all over America, you just have to dig around to find it. Figure out your route and hit the internet: I can't imagine driving through multiple states and not sampling the local fare. (Road-trip research is one area where chowhound.com's message boards truly excel.) Just 'cause you don't eat fast food doesn't mean you can't stop!

$1000 a year is on the low end for car insurance; figure on $1500-2000 unless you're carrying the bare minimum (which is inadvisable, as so many drivers are uninsured). I don't know if health coverage is typical for local kitchen jobs or not, but your friends can clarify that part. I'm not trying to discourage you, I'm just struck by the extreme contrast between Norway and New Orleans. We're not an orderly, clean, or fair place....it's hot as hell (heck, it's 70 degrees today), wetter than a shower, and we have cockroaches bigger than Yorkshire terriers. Have you spent much time in NOLA? A long visit might help you decide.