Memory Lane: New Orleans

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All this talk about Mardi Gras got me craving all my cajun favorites from childhood. (I was born in New Orleans.)

Okay, so I left New Orleans when I was eight years old... so my memory of the cajun culinary cuisine is a bit fuzzy.  When I think "New Orleans", I think of three really awesomely awesome things: Popeyes, King Cake, and Crawfish.

Why those three?

Popeyes
Popeyes fried chicken happened to be the first piece of meat I ever ate apparently.

(My brother ate steak and lobster as his first meaty meal and I ate fried chicken? C'mon Mom. Seriously?)

My mom told me that she would peel tiny pieces of fried chicken and place it on my highchair tabletop and I would grab the tiny piece with my entire hand and smear it all over my face.  It's actually not unlike the way I eat fried chicken now.  Well.  Except for the highchair.  I'm a big girl, after all.


King Cake
I remember in Kindergarten during Mardi Gras, we would get to eat a piece of King Cake after nap time. Well, I never napped (I always untied my shoes as an excuse to get up and have my teacher tie my shoes, even though I knew good and well how to tie my shoes.  Ms. Bailey eventually gave up and let me stay awake and paint on the easel in the hallway during nap time.) --so I never got King Cake.

Instead, my parents would buy a King Cake from the grocery store and I would poke through the entire cake to find the piece with the plastic baby inside.

(Do they still do that? It seems dangerous now that I think about it). 


Crawfish
You can't live in New Orleans and not get invited to 10 billion crawfish parties.  My family and I went to at least 20 billion in my 8 years of living there, and my brother and I inhaled pounds of crawfish.  No potatoes or corn.  Just crawfish.

I'm pretty sure we would win a crawfish peeling and eating contest.  Pretty sure.


Longingly dreaming of spicy fried chicken,
Jenny

image via

All this talk about Mardi Gras got me craving all my cajun favorites from childhood. (I was born in New Orleans.)

Okay, so I left New Orleans when I was eight years old... so my memory of the cajun culinary cuisine is a bit fuzzy.  When I think "New Orleans", I think of three really awesomely awesome things: Popeyes, King Cake, and Crawfish.

Why those three?

Popeyes
Popeyes fried chicken happened to be the first piece of meat I ever ate apparently.

(My brother ate steak and lobster as his first meaty meal and I ate fried chicken? C'mon Mom. Seriously?)

My mom told me that she would peel tiny pieces of fried chicken and place it on my highchair tabletop and I would grab the tiny piece with my entire hand and smear it all over my face.  It's actually not unlike the way I eat fried chicken now.  Well.  Except for the highchair.  I'm a big girl, after all.


King Cake
I remember in Kindergarten during Mardi Gras, we would get to eat a piece of King Cake after nap time. Well, I never napped (I always untied my shoes as an excuse to get up and have my teacher tie my shoes, even though I knew good and well how to tie my shoes.  Ms. Bailey eventually gave up and let me stay awake and paint on the easel in the hallway during nap time.) --so I never got King Cake.

Instead, my parents would buy a King Cake from the grocery store and I would poke through the entire cake to find the piece with the plastic baby inside.

(Do they still do that? It seems dangerous now that I think about it). 


Crawfish
You can't live in New Orleans and not get invited to 10 billion crawfish parties.  My family and I went to at least 20 billion in my 8 years of living there, and my brother and I inhaled pounds of crawfish.  No potatoes or corn.  Just crawfish.

I'm pretty sure we would win a crawfish peeling and eating contest.  Pretty sure.


Longingly dreaming of spicy fried chicken,
Jenny