It took a few tries, but I’ve finally settled on a recipe for Momma’s Syrup Pie (or Tarte au Sirop). My goal was to recreate a pie that is, on the surface, very simple: a sweet pie dough crust, with a caramel custard-like filling, though not a caramel custard pie per se. This old Cajun pie was a doozy to figure out because few reliable, … Continue reading Elusive Cajun Recipe: Syrup Pie
To celebrate the 30th anniversary of my move to New York City, I figured I needed to make a cake. I’ve already done two chocolate cake recipes (here and here) but I am compelled to share a third with you – my Buttermilk Chocolate-Chip Cake – to appropriately mark this milestone in my life. The idea of using buttermilk in a chocolate cake only recently … Continue reading Buttermilk Chocolate Chip Cake
Thanksgiving week, y’all! I don’t love Thanksgiving turkey so much, but I love the side dishes. This side is my second fave (after Rice Dressing) and I like to use a recipe I developed from a childhood memory of my Aunt Versie’s version. In hers, the corn was more crumbly than other recipes I’ve tried, which end up a bit wet. Aunt Versie’s was crumbly … Continue reading T’ante Versie’s Maque Choux
It’s that time of year again – PECAN TIME! – so I figured it’s high time I repost this recipe, one of the first ones I shared on the blog: Standing on her feet all day at Eliza’s Beauty Shop in Eunice, Momma never had time for magazine-reading, but she sure did subscribe to a lot of periodicals for the ladies who sat in her … Continue reading Louisiana Butter Pecan Cake
A few years ago Aubyn and I, along with Moby, our wonderful (now sadly-departed) pooch, drove from New York City to the coast of South Carolina, to board a ferry to Daufuskie, a sparsely-inhabited island about half-hour by ferry from the mainland. Daufuskie is where Aubyn’s half-sister lived at the time with her husband. The occasion was a Gwinn family reunion of sorts. I say … Continue reading For the Love of Gratin
For years I have been imagining a cake that would be just the thing for Christmas Day. Well, you, my devoted Cakeover legion, are in luck! This weekend I broke down and finally started tinkering with a recipe – and the outcome, I am happy to report, is pretty much right on. This cake tastes like what you’d get if you cake-ified Ben & Jerry’s … Continue reading The Other Christmas Day Cake
In our house in Eunice, Louisiana, in the 1960s and ’70s, bouillie au lait (milk custard) was a comfort food. We pronounced it “B-yo-ly,” and sometimes ate it for breakfast or as an after-school snack. In Momma’s childhood home in Ville Platte during the Great Depression, bouillie au lait was survival food. It was affordable for poor families like theirs because it required only three … Continue reading Great Depression Bouillie au Lait
The 1970s ushered in the era of convenience foods – think “Hamburger Helper” and taco-making kits (“Just add your own ground beef!”). It was also the heyday of the casserole – a dish with a wide (and forgiving) interpretation involving the combination of protein, fat, and starch in a rectangular baking dish (funnily enough, called a “casserole.”) Usually held together with noodles of some sort, … Continue reading The Casserole Renaissance
In 1992 when I moved to New York from Louisiana I took my love of the food of my home state right into my East Village kitchen – where regularly I made jambalaya, étouffée, gumbo, fricassée, courtbouillon, and all the rest, like I’d never left Cajun Country. The key ingredients (or reasonable substitutes) for those dishes are available pretty much anywhere. But there was one thing … Continue reading Ortense’s Gateau aux Figues
With ten mouths to feed, my daddy’s vegetable garden in Eunice, La. was an essential part of our family’s meal-plan. I remember those early years when he experimented with growing things – things that had a knack for producing an abundance of food – particularly tomatoes, eggplants, and zucchinis (not to mention cucumbers and bell peppers). For the first few summers he’d produce entire mountain … Continue reading You Little Tart!
Popeye’s calls this dish “Cajun Rice,” but I don’t know of any Cajuns who call it that. We either call it “Rice Dressing” or “Dirty Rice.” Whatever it’s called, it’s my absolute favorite side dish, and like many side dishes, it could easily serve as a main dish if you are so inclined. As a main, I would pair it with steamed asparagus, sautéed Brussels … Continue reading That Dirty Cajun Rice Dressing Thing
Chicot State Park near Ville Platte, Louisiana, a multifarious, 6,400-acre wildlife reserve, is the setting of one of my earliest cooking lessons. In addition to places to hike, swim, go fishing or boating, the park also features plenty of covered pavilions outfitted with big barbeque pits adjacent to them, as well as fire pits and picnic tables right out in the open. I was a … Continue reading Pépère’s Courtbouillon Chicot
Everybody’s baking on these long days during the pandemic. I’m no exception. I’ve been wanting to make another cake because I’m overdue for one, but I’ve also been craving my pépère (grandfather) DeJean’s catfish Courtbouillon (recipe coming soon to a blog post near you). This would then require me to bake my mémère’s Yeasty Rolls (and everybody knows you can’t have Courtbouillon without yeasty rolls)! Ask … Continue reading Mémère’s Cafeteria-Lady Yeasty Rolls
Side dish or main course? The only correct answer is, “Both.” When my parents were kids during the Great Depression, cornbread was usually the main event – breakfast, lunch, or supper. Momma said she took cornbread to school for lunch pretty regularly. When it wasn’t cornbread, it was most likely Bouillie au Lait, another Depression staple in Cajun Louisiana. I made this cornbread recipe as … Continue reading ‘Coonass Kandinsky’ Cornbread
You may have heard by now that I’m in the midst of promoting my book, so I’ve been a bit negligent of my food-making blog entries. Well, today I’m rectifying that (if only temporarily) with the newest recipe: My Glorious Pink Grapefruit Cake! The inspiration for this cake comes from those lemon and lime cakes in the 1970s – the period I write about in … Continue reading Cakeover! Glorious Pink Grapefruit Cake
(Parenthetically) Speaking 