We are on our annual trek to The South. We love it here. Phase One: our free days until the Chefs Collaborative Summit '11 begins. Our first full day in New Orleans, LA (NOLA) started with lunch at
Napoleon House. The place is dripping with ambiance. Take a look at the walls. I really don't think it has been painted for 75 years! It is a little touristy, but there are locals to give the place an authentic feel. We had a quarter of a muffaletta, the classic New Orleans sandwich with provolone cheese, salami and a great olive mix.
We got out of the "Quarter" as soon as we could (not a big fan of crowds) and went straight to our favorite "rusty/dusty" antique yard right off of Magazine Street in upper Garden District/lower Uptown. We bought the kettle in the picture along with some other cool props and metal crates that we will have to ship home. I don't think we can carry that home in luggage!
Phase Two: We took advantage of the
Chef's Collaborative Summit while in NOLA. Little did we know it would include a 3 hour bus ride. (The theme of Gilligan's Island kept floating through my head..."a 3 hour tour".) First stop: a rice farmer who, along with his wife, also raises crawfish in the same rice fields, Frey Crawfish . They are very "green" and sustainable. Above is the photo of the mudbug (crawfish) sorting machine he created.
These are the push boats he had made. The workers push the boat and walk through the rice fields scooping crawfish. The way this used to be done was with a motorized boat which not only was burning fossil fuel, it also destroyed the crawfish due to fuel and oil in the water.
Here is a bag of their crawfish. They explained that the yellow tint is from crawfish fat, which as we all know, fat equals flavor. It just kills me that this is so readily available in stores in Louisiana...but not near us!
Here is one of the Mama Mudbugs just loaded with eggs. She will drop a couple hundred eggs.
We then hopped on the bus and went out to look at the 2nd rice crop. As you can see, they treated us to true Southern Hospitality and supplied ice cold beer.
Our stop at Prejean's in Lafayette was incredible. What you see on my plate: a crawfish pie and crawfish etouffee (smothered crawfish). At the top of the photo you can see Boudin Balls, tasty sausage rice fritters with a creole remoulade sauce.
We stopped at a little grocery/butcher along side the freeway,
Don's Specialty Meats, that is most famous for cracklin's, which are not to be confused with fried pork skin. Cracklin's still have a little bit of meat...Most folks I have talked to said that they couldn't help but eat a full pound bag of them on their way home. Fear not...we at a couple of them, and no more. We did, however, buy some local andouille sausage and tasso ham. As you can see from the photo above, I was surprised to find stuffed catfish available, too. Dang...they have some of the most amazing food so readily available.
The collaborative wanted to make sure we were paying attention. What better way to do that? Give us amazing sandwiches (muffaletta & banh mi) from
Cochon Butcher . I don't think I have ever had a better banh mi!
I think my favorite part of the conference was the Italian-style hog butchering class at
Domenica. We watched the very talented Chef Alon. He lived in Parma, Italy and studied the Italian method of butchery and sausage making/meat curing. It was fascinating to see him cut the pig up in a new way, well, new to us. We also learned about the heritage pig that he raises for the cured meats. I couldn't find my notes but know that it is on
the
American Livestock Breeds Conservancy's list. I can't heap enough praise on the class and the meats. They were both incredible!
Phase 3 & 4 - next post!
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