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 !!!!  

Waiting Out The Heat

The temperatures are soaring and tempers are growing short for almost the 100^th day in a row here.  The brilliance of the sun pounds the asphalt at 325F/162C degrees lifting mirages off into the distance.  The temperatures have been in the triple digits (and for my Celsius friends that’s upward near 43 degrees) and has been doing so consecutively for more than 90 some days.  It started back on June 22^nd and has been relentless since then. Indeed it’s hotter than 14 Hades.

I remember those days riding in the thistle torn desert amongst hot thirsty cattle wondering when we would arrive safely at camp as we rode hearty horses to our next host’s destination.   I learned to never dip my hat into a cattle trough full of algae and put it on my head as it made me smell like “cow” the entire day.  Sweat less heat took our breath away as the oppressiveness of it rose to greet us by 8am.  Hotter than 127F/50C.We shut our horses and ourselves down by nine a.m.

The desert is different; reprieve from heat comes on the heels of amazing sunsets. Not much but enough to bear it. Beautiful weather by 9pm and then easy sleep. We looked forward to that promise day in and day out.   Eventually after riding 3 days on and one day off, it wasn’t enough rest for my horse and me.  One of us went to the hospital, one of us was feeling pretty puny and even though I was drinking 2 gallons of water a day, my body needed more than water and rest;  it needed a break from the heat and some electrolytes. Gatorade didn’t work.  Then I started to notice the stagger in my horse.  My black horse, Fancy.  I went home.

We didn’t have to carry any gear; we had a support vehicle meet us every two miles for water breaks for the horses and for us.  I remember those 212 miles in the desert.     

In Western Oklahoma there is no promise of reprieve when the sun sets and begins a new day for my friends in Australia.  The heat stays heavily and lingering with its boa constrictor grasp on its inhabitants like a constant unwanted blanket wrapping us too tightly near our throats.  Our skin feels like fire and our eyeballs parched with screaming heat. Our lips cracked like the land itself separating as it begs for rain as this drought threatens existence as it did with the Maya.

With horse travel, I promised my horse and myself that if  I didn’t have to subject my horse and me to the extremes of life, don’t do it;  only if it’s a life or death matter.

An amazing offer of kindness came from my friend Anna on the way to Oklahoma.  Anna wanted to go on this ride with me but for family reasons she is unable to go with me.  Anyway, after looking for about 5 weeks for transport without success, her father offered to transport Evangeline and me ALL the way back to Louisiana so we can start there instead.  Ironically, this long ride was happening partly to a true need of transport.  The rates were outrageous and I figured I could ride Evangeline back for half the cost. Yes, horses truly get better gas mileage!

Usually I have no pace and no rush… but this time I have to be back by January 1^st to start school. Anyway, Anna’s father is able to take us back on Sept. 24^th.

There is a time for all of us to realize what is just good common sense.  I hate that I have to wait until Sept 24^th to begin this odyssey. While in Oklahoma though I can work with Eve and help around the ranch there until that time comes. I will continue to assess Evangeline and get her more back up into shape, shots, coggins done and etc..before we depart. 

That look in her eye says she is ready to go like I am..but I just have to wait out the heat and do what’s smart for BOTH of us.  I have a feeling this heat won’t break until mid October.   My original plan was to start on October 28^th so I am still ahead of the game.   

Whether I leave now or in a few weeks or October 28th, the point is that I am leaving and continuing to live my dreams. 

Over and out for now – September 3, 2011

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