The Recap

Wordsmiths’ Books hosted an event last night for a new collection of essays called, Alone in the Kitchen with an Eggplant: Confessions of Cooking for One and Dining Alone. There was a good-sized crowd on hand to check it out. The editor of the collection, Jenni Ferrari-Adler started things off with a brief introduction and read from an essay written by Nora Ehpron. She was followed by Phoebe Nobles who read from her essay on the delight of fresh asparagus arriving at the farmers market after a Michigan winter. Yes, she did discuss the aroma of “asparagus pee.” They followed up the readings with some Q&A, and then they announced the winner of Wordsmiths’ “dining alone” essay contest.

The winner was - uh - me. I know what you’re saying - “Wait. What? Rigged!!!!” Dude. When did you get so cynical? The contest was judged by the two ladies present - and I’ve never met them before. I sure hope that you are not impugning their good names? Also: they announced the names of the first three places in the contest, so there were at least that many entries.

For my efforts, I was awarded a heaping bag full of schwag: a copy of the book that the ladies signed for me, a giant foam backed poster of the cover of the book, $100 worth of chocolate from The Chocolate Bar, a one year membership to Working Title Playwrights events, a t-shirt from Random House audio books, and a sack of galleys for upcoming food-related books. Next time those guys have a contest, I recommend that you enter.

Someone at the event asked if my essay was available on line. When I said no, she asked if that was because I was shopping the essay around for sale. I had a good laugh on that one. I’ve included the essay below. Why not?

Before you read it, a few words of explanation. Boudreaux and Gaston are not real people. These are the names that are invoked in EVERY Cajun story ever told. That’s just the way it is. “How’s your mom and them?” is a universal form of greeting in New Orleans. It replaces “how’s it going?” in polite conversation. The prefix ‘ti before a name in Louisiana means “little”. It is a bastardization of the French word petit. The word “bé” is short for the French bébé, baby. It is used to address just about everyone. Maque choux is a corn based side dish. It is yummy. There was an 800 word limit on this. I needed to do some heavy editing to trim it down. There’s a recipe after the essay.

The Essay

The 2000 Census found that Louisiana has the least mobile citizenry in the country. I didn’t need the Census to know, innately, that this was true. I’m the only member of my extended family that lives outside of a 90-mile radius of the City of New Orleans. My mother’s genealogy work shows that her side of the family has been essentially within that same radius for over 200 years. I’m convinced that one of the reasons that Cajun food is so distinctive is the connection that the people have with the land.

Eating is rarely a solitary endeavor in Louisiana. Meals are usually prepared for the household, additional family/friends that live nearby, and as many people as you might reasonably expect to see in the next few days. Every guest is sent home with containers of leftovers, and food is brought to everyone that the cook visits. It works like this:

Boudreaux: Hey! How you doin’ bé? I brought you some jambalaya that I made when ‘ti-Jean and them were over.
Gaston: Come on in. I got some gumbo from last night to send you home with.
Boudreaux: How’s your mom and them?

Basic food distribution is also a communal activity. Many people have vegetable gardens or have a family member with a small farm. My grandparents had a farm. It was not unusual to see them to pull up on a Saturday morning with a truck full of vegetables to get ready for “putting up.”

My grandparents also raised cattle. It necessarily followed that my grandfather could show up at any time with the better part of a cow in several coolers.

Game hunting and fishing are a way of life in Louisiana. I was too “city” to be a hunter myself, but the rest of my family is usually camouflaged and ready for action. One Christmas morning I was helping my grandmother get ready for Christmas dinner when one of my uncles rolled in with a cooler of ducks. The idea was that my grandmother should “clean” and put away the ducks, while simultaneously preparing the Christmas meal. My grandmother recommended that I employ this scenario as a test for future wife candidates.

Variations on this theme could result in caches of deer, shrimp, crawfish, etc. showing up at the front door with little notice. The price of shrimp is generally helping the deliverer de-head and peel a few coolers full to ready for freezing. It is generally considered good form to send the person bringing the game/seafood off with food of their own. The exchange might go like this:

Boudreaux: Hey! How you doin’ bé? I brought you some shrimp from when we went trawlin’ with ‘ti-Jean.
Gaston: Come on in. I got a bushel of field peas to send you home with.
Boudreaux: How’s your mom and them?

It was all very “Animal Vegetable Miracle” looking back on it. It’s a bit of a culture shock when you leave a heavily ingrained food-based social community like that and move - well, anywhere else really. Whenever I would leave home to drive back to Miami (then) or Atlanta (now), I was always sent off with a cooler full of family-grown frozen vegetables, seafood, and meats of some kind.

That’s how I came to start cooking a venison roast alone in my Miami Beach apartment one rainy weekend. I had heard that the trick to cooking venison is to soak the roast in milk for a day so it wouldn’t taste game-y. I pulled the roast out of the freezer after work on Friday night and got my mother on the phone for technical support. A friend who popped in for a minute and found a hunk of deer in a pot full of milk in my fridge was more than a little skeptical.

In the end, the venison roast came out better than I could have hoped. I had used some of my frozen stash of vegetables to make some maque choux on the side. On a lark I also made some spicy potato salad made by boiling the potatoes in Zatarain’s Crab Boil. I’m not sure that my grandmother would have approved of this innovation, but it was tasty. Mysteriously, my friends were nowhere to be found when I finished preparing the spread a day and half after I started. Although I ended up eating alone that night, there was a very palpable connection to my people 875 miles away. Naturally, I was handing out containers full of leftovers to everyone that I saw for the next week.

The Recipe

As long as I’m tooting my own horn in this post, I may as well tell you that the recipe below, which is entirely my own, was also recognized in a competition of sorts. I’ve written a few posts in the past about Amy Sins’ wonderful cookbook (check out these posts for more Ruby Slippers Cookbook — 1, 2, and 3). Periodically, Ms. Sins sends out a newsletter with updates on the status of the book, news about New Orleans and her own struggle to rebuild her home, and recipes. She selects the best user-submitted recipe for inclusion in the newsletter and she sends out a small prize to the winner. My recipe below was included in her August/September newsletter, and I won a package of notecards with vintage New Orleans photographs on them. Very cool. (I used mushroom stock the last time I made this, and it came out pretty well.)

Crawfish Ettouffee Risotto

2 lbs. Crawfish Tails
1 cup oil
3/4 cup flour
1 1/2 cup cups chopped onions
1/2 cup chopped celery
1/3 cup mashed and minced garlic
2/3 cups of chopped green peppers
1 can Rotel tomatoes and chiles
2 teaspoons salt
2 teaspoons black pepper (or Tony Chachere’s)
1 teaspoon Tabasco
1 teaspoon paprika
1 1/2 cups Arborio rice
3 141/2 oz. cans fat-free, low sodium chicken (or vegetable) broth
At least 1 Abita Turbodog

Begin with a roux. In a large skillet make roux by stirring oil and flower over low-medium heat until the roux becomes a toasted peanut color. Don’t worry if the roux is not firm, it will thicken as ingredients are added. In separate pot, warm broth over low-medium heat. Do not allow broth to boil. Add chopped onions, celery, garlic, and green peppers to roux. Sauté for 5 minutes. Add Arborio rice, and continue to sauté for 1 minute. Add Rotel tomatoes and liquid, and stir until liquid is absorbed. Add 1/2 cup of beer (the rest is for the chef). Add seasonings. Begin adding broth to sautéed ingredients 1/2 cup at a time, stirring continuously, wait for liquid to be absorbed before adding next 1/2 cup of broth. The Risotto will slowly begin to take on a creamy consistency. The recipe involves lots of stirring. Add crawfish tails approximately 5 minutes before all broth is absorbed (best guess). Cooking is complete when all of the liquid has been absorbed. It is always good practice to have at least one stirring partner and several Turbodogs on hand to make this recipe perfect. Enjoy.