Food with Flare - with Louisiana hot sauce of course

Let’s face it, it’s a foodie heaven down in Southeastern Louisiana and all over Acadian Country! The French Cajun cooking is a very unique style of cooking that blends the spicy with haute cuisine! So today’s blog will have lots of flavor about the fun exquisite mouth watering facts of Cajun Cooking.

Cajun cooking has very few exact recipes. It’s a little bit of this and a little bit of that and like Emeril would say a little bit of BAM! Ever hear of a Lagniappe (pronounced Lan-yap). A lagniappe is “something extra thrown in” and originates as an Italian word. This Southeastern Cuisine Chefs are brilliant with Lagniappe and spices…but it’s more than that. Gumbo? What kind would you like? Chicken, frog leg, shrimp, you name it, gumbo is more than stew. It’s like stew on steroids! Wow…and is it tasty.

The mood of the cook decides the taste. I hate to have a cook who has had a bad day! Often times, since a chef’s mood dictates taste, you often time will meet the heart and soul of the chef just by tasting their food.

Grocery stores are amazing in this region. The spices and racks of ingredients especially for Cajun cuisine take over aisles and have much to choose from and the smells over take you as you walk in automatic doors. It hits you sometimes so hard, your eyes will water. Little old ladies wobbling down aisles of Cajun ingredients inspecting each little canister of spice like it was priceless. The fresh baked breads and of course, gotta add some Cracklin in your cart to round off snack time. Cracklin’ you ask? Google it... It takes courage to eat Cracklin’.

I’ve eaten and love Jambes de Grenouilles. Only farm raised please. The ones out of the Bayou are touchy and can give you a good case of indigestion. And no folks, they do not taste like chicken. They taste like Grenouille!

Real Boulangerie’s and Boucherie’s exist for your pleasure – the old fashioned heart and soul French butcher and bread shops.

Want some really good food? Step up to the trailer with the graffiti on it in the back of the alley, walk right in and make yourself at home. The only thing this place is missing is a password and a drug addict to answer the door. It’s just darn scary walking up to this joint. A  "Bienvenue Bon Creole" sign hangs crooked on the wall. Po’ Boys are their speciality. Po’ boy sandwiches originated in Acadian Country. Folks in the depression did not have the means anymore to really put great meat on their sandwiches so they started to put anything they could afford on them. Thus the name.

The heart of Acadian cooking is as unique as any cuisine in the US. Recipes generations old passed down and then blended with Spanish, Haitian and French… this style of cuisine is a heart burner in a good way. Be careful though… that hot sauce is HOT HOT HOT! So… if you have a chance to visit Acadian country..make sure you Throw in a little jazz, hot sauce (Louisiana hot sauce of course) and enough time in the mix…and then you can say you’re really  cookin’!  Laissez les bon temps roulez !!!!  

Long Rider Ghosts & Michelle's Bull Pen

Michelle greeted me with a friendly hello when I walked in the door at her tack shop I had wanted to visit for about the last 8 or so years! Finally, I made up my mind to commit to a visit.  Her website is cute right now... she has all things horse, her horses are her kids and amazing joyful countenance about her spirit!  Love to be able to stay with her by horse if given the chance on some ride sometime in the future - maybe Ok to FL re-ride???  Please visit www.michellesbullpen.net often.  She is in the middle of an update at this web address..but is happy to help you with tack, etc. Click here to visit the info for her store

Michelle and I both are senior horse and Tennessee Walking Horse fans.   Her horse, Andy, passed at the remarkable age of 44!!!  She has an amazing picture of the two of them under saddle at the age of 39. 


I mentioned to her that I was "taking a 1000 mile ride by horse around the perimeter of Louisiana".  We got to chatting and there was the ghost...right there in front of me..verbally appearing from her mouth when she said, "A man who was riding across country came through here about 8 years ago". I said, "Do you remember his name?"  She said she couldnt' remember.  But one of her vendors....a young Mr. Adams said, "You know, someone stayed with my dad in Kentucky a long time ago and he had already ridden several thousands of mile up until he stopped by our house."  I said, "I reckon that would be Gene Glasscock".  The Second Ghost appears.

He makes a call to his dad, Jerry Adams - A Tenn Walker afficienado himself, and a few minutes later the phone rings back and it  was Gene. The elder Mr. Adams had been contacted by Gayle Gerber to stay with them on Gene's trek like she had done for him for so many times before that.

I said to the younger, "I know both of those people" and to Michelle, "If you can remember, let me know".

The ghosts of United States long riders are everywhere. You just never know when you will run into someone who has met up with one of "us".    I directed them to the Long Riders Guild and also to my sites so they could see others who have been in the saddle in this fashion.

The phone rings.  "Hmmm...505 area code.  I have no idea who that is!". I didn't answer it as I was on the other line...and listened to a subsequent message comes in,"Hi Megan, this is Phil Moore."  That's all I had to hear to call him back.  Phil and I missed each other in Oklahoma on our rides in 2009.  He was passing through Lawton on Sept 23rd, 2009. and I was in Blair, just 'up the road' that day on my first attempt.  We had a great chat (thank you Phil) and can't wait to follow his next adventure that makes my ride look like a block long!  CowboyPhilMoore.com is his site. Please take a peek if you have a minute.  Phil plans to follow a Native American Trail of tears through MANY different states!  "Keep in touch".  Oh, I will Phil.  Thanks for the call.  Ghost number three disappears over the phone lines.

But when the last ghost appeared and I shed a tear.  The song on the radio was Ronnie Dunn's "Cost of Livin".   The Pensacola bay is about a mile long.  The old Interstate bridge  is now a footbridge.  The interstate bridge runs parallel to the old one where cyclists and pedestrians cross daily.  I take a peaceful look over the bay and through some humid fog I see an apparition of  a man walking on the bridge.  Very faintly, leading a horse perhaps a wagon.  I blinked to shake it free. "I got steel toes, a strong back,  I rarely call in sick.  I work weekends, a good truck"...

I realized that this ghost cannot technically be categorized as a long rider in some ways, but a hero in others.  The vision stuck in my head and Ernest Nunley's pass over this pedestrian bridge with his horses right around 2008 stared me in the face.  He called me that day as he was crossing, to wish me well and see how I was doing.  I called him friend.  He passed away three weeks ago in the middle of his wagon ride across the country.  

" What I don’t know, I catch on real quick, I work weekends,If I have to..."

These ghosts of long riders are everywhere as a human testimony of a dedication to history, equestrian travel and a sense of individuality  that is inexplicable.  They are, not matter how long it has been, remembered.  No matter what they were to other people, past or present, no matter their behavior after the fact of their ride....for a brief moment, they were someone' s inspiration, someone's dream come try by horse and perhaps someone's sanity.  Maybe someone's reason to live, I dunno.  The mutual inspirational synergy between long rider and host is also unique.

This brings me great comfort with each ghost I run into.  

" Give you 40, And then some, Whatever it takes, Three dollars and change at the pump, Cost of livin’s high and goin’ up."

500 miles today in the space of 9 hours by car... whizzing by the landscape as though you can cross the country by interstate and never see a thing.

Thank you Long Riders past and present.... yep....the cost of living is high... and going up.. 


Thanks to CMT for allowing me to embed this video.

Cost of Livin' - Ronnie Dunn - Ronnie Dunn Videos

The Wretched Refuse of your Teeming Shore: Acadian Country After All!

Dean Jobb, author and Acadian history expert writes about the Acadian Deportation, “It was like a shame ... no one wanted to talk about it. ... a fracture in history, no one seems to remember how the deportation shattered the Acadian people.” May I add how no country wanted to claim them either. No one personally cared about them: they were pawns in a massive political power game of chess.

In steadfast faith the Acadians prayed what Kurt Vonnegut wrote: “The crucified planet Earth, should it find a voice and a sense of irony, might now well say of our abuse of it, "Forgive them, Father, They know not what they do."  The Acadians cried out for belonging as Kurt Vonnegut’s book title well said that “They were men without a country”.

A very young Thomas Jefferson was presented with the opportunity of taking the fledgling United States into a world power when Napoleon decided to sell the Louisiana Territories to the United States in the Louisiana Purchase.  The details of this Purchase have been long forgotten and so have the political turmoil surrounding this land transaction.  Technically, this “sale” was "illegal" and violated the Third Treaty of San Ildefonso in several ways. The political powers at the time knew this and as we say in modern times, "just let that little detail slide".

Why would Napoleon take this huge piece of land and just sell it   to the United States and take his foothold off the coastal regions of Louisiana and deep into the heart of the North American Continent?  Well, in many ways, to tick the British and Spanish off!

Consider this.  Is there a better way than to upset your political rivalry and punish them for deporting your country's people??? Believe it or not, the French government did not feel all that strongly about Louisiana.  Despite the French colonization, it had been the Spanish running the territory for decades.  The French got it back from a bad argument that Napolean had with the King Ferdinand as Ferdinand reneged on a promise to Napolean's older brother, Joseph Bonaparte to make him the next King of Spain in a peaceful fashion. Angrily, Napolean cried a massive political "Check Mate! " by showing his Emperasorial prowess by making a new Political Friend who hated and just became free of British Rule in 1789.  I'm sure King George was not thrilled at all and the King Ferdinand probably became just as frightened of his newest most powerful next door neighbor as a country!  Side note: Napolean won and eventually made his older brother King...but by force instead!

The French Government didn't really want the Louisiana Territories.  They didn't have the ability to control it; they needed all of their troops in Europe to fight Napoleon's wars.  So selling Louisiana to the Americans killed several birds with one stone:

• It got rid of a territory that French Governance and Napolean didn't have the money to administer


• It gave Napolean a nice infusion of cash


• It helped cement the alliance between the US and France


• It strengthened the US, especially giving them additional ports to control.  That gave the US an incentive to strengthen its navy.

Makes sense doesn’t it?  After cementing the relationship between France and the United States, the US now had charge of the French settlements in Louisiana.  Home of the Free, democracy and apple beignets.  Can you imagine the delight down on the Bayou that the United States now had governance over their settlements there (even among the skeptics, there had to be relief.  These French settlements had been swearing allegiance to a new country on the average of once a year for nearly a century!).

No one wanted the Acadians…and now,  finally, FINALLY!  They had a country they could call their own who also wanted them. It was the first time in centuries that Acadians could just “be”, be their own countrymen and be in a country who promised them hope, happiness and the pursuit of life and liberty…. And the promise as a gift from France to the US which Our Lady in New York Harbor cries out to them: “Give me your tired, your poor, Your huddled masses, yearning to breath free, The wretched refuse of your teeming shore, Send these, the homeless, tempest tossed, I lift my lamp beside the golden door.”

Acadians from then on, could live life on their terms.  Welcome Acadians, we hope you still feel right at home.

Disclaimer:   By the way, I claim my British Colonist blood. I am 75% British and 25% Greek.  I read French rather well and can speak it with a broken accent.  I have nothing against any of these countries and am speaking of them only with historical context as a background for events. I hold NO bias against anyone’s nationality or country of origin.  

For our reference, here is a map of the Louisiana Territory.