Lafayette to New Orleans

Eating our way down through Louisiana!  Had the "fried everything" dish at Prejean's Cajun  restaurant in Lafayette!  Here we are with the fried frog leg.  Tasted like fried crunchy meat......sort of like the fried alligator.  Next time we will be brave and get it grilled so we can actually taste it!

Prejean's restaurant was filled with local color, complete with Spanish Moss, a big stuffed alligator named Bob, and a Zydeco Cajun band.

What the heck is a Mayhaw???  Well it is officially tasty!

After our bold experiment with swamp food, we headed to Crawfish Town USA.  After four pounds of crawdads we had stinging lips(from the spicy boil), tired fingers, and half full tummies.  No dip, no sides, just a pile of bodies.  Much less meaty and tasty than either the shrimp or crab we are used to.

So off to a better place, a very outback bar on stilts over the Atchafalaya Basin Swamp with local music and dancing and some gingerbread-like syrup cake.  Some crack dealer bought rounds for the whole bar (about 12 people) so we had some good booze, too.

Despite the original Olympia Beer light in the joint, I don't think they carried our home-town brew anymore.

After a few plantation stops, we headed for New Orleans.  It was a bit on the chilly side, so sidewalk cruising was not nearly as comfy as eating.  So after a mid-morning snack on beignets at Cafe du Monde (see below) we shared a giant Muffaletta sandwich---ham, cheese, and olive tampenade on a sesame seed bun.  Waitress shared a free sliver of King Cake with us so that we did not have to wait for the free stuff at the parade that night in honor of the start of Mardi Gras.

OK, the donuts were pretty good and neither of us inhaled the powdered sugar, but the hot cocoa was superb......and hot!  The air temp was floating in the 30's and this is an outdoor venue!

In honor of our friend, Charlie, we had to give some of this plantation syrup a try after visiting the sugar cane plantation itself.  So far, good in oatmeal and on cornbread home made in the RV with fresh Navajo blue cornmeal, in keeping with the ethnic mix that is Louisiana!

At Jessica and Andy's suggestion, we went to an African restaurant in the French Quarter and enjoyed making little balls of FuFu to eat our spicy sauce with.  Tasted like old dehydrated potatoes, but it was fun to play with and the sauces were good!

Negotiated with Dirk that I would go to the World War II Museum with him if he did a New Orleans cooking class with me, and it all worked out nicely, especially since the class was a demo and included biscuits and syrup, gumbo, jambalaya, pralines, and bananas foster, plus some local beer and good iced tea.

The chef was a character, a historian, and good teacher with a good mirror for viewing his creations.

Roux at 6 stages of browning.  When it looks like curdled chocolate, it is done.  Don't do any Cajun cooking authentically unless you like lots of pork fat.  Or butter..........

Fresh pecan pralines for our palate cleansers.  Now Dirk can make his own!  They can even be made on a propane stovetop!!!  Tomorrow we leave New Orleans and it is time to trim the eating out budget, so we may return to the mundane until we can wrastle up some seafood in Florida!