In this treasury of Cajun heritage, the author allows the people who are the very foundations of Cajun culture to tell their own stories. Nicole Denée Fontenot visited Cajun women in their homes and kitchens and gathered over 300 recipes as well as thousands of narrative accounts. Most of these women were raised on small farms and remember times when everything (except coffee, sugar and flour) was home-made. They shared traditional recipes made with modern and simple ingredients.
"Despite the increased popularity of Cajun foods such as gumbo, crawfish etouffee, and boudin, relatively little is known about the history of this cuisine. Stir the Pot explores its origins, its evolution from a seventeenth-century French settlement in Nova Scotia to the explosion of Cajun food onto the American dining scene over the past few decades. The authors debunk the myths surrounding Cajun food - foremost that its staples are closely guarded relics of the Cajuns' early days in Louisiana - and explain how local dishes and culinary traditions have come to embody Cajun cuisine both at home and throughout the world." -- from the publisher.
The author of the New York Times bestseller The Sharper Your Knife, The Less You Cry tells the inspiring story of how she helped nine others find their inner cook. After graduating from Le Cordon Bleu in Paris, writer Kathleen Flinn returned with no idea what to do next, until one day at a supermarket she watched a woman loading her cart with ultraprocessed foods. Flinn's "chefternal" instinct kicked in: she persuaded the stranger to reload with fresh foods, offering her simple recipes for healthy, easy meals. The Kitchen Counter Cooking School includes practical, healthy tips that boost readers' culinary self-confidence, and strategies to get the most from their grocery dollar, and simple recipes that get readers cooking.
A badass modern Cajun cookbook from Top Chef fan favorite Isaac Toups and acclaimed journalist Jennifer V. Cole, featuring 100 full-flavor stories and recipes. Things get a little salty down in the bayou... Cajun country is the last bastion of true American regional cooking, and no one knows it better than Isaac Toups. Now the chef of the acclaimed Toups' Meatery and Toups South in New Orleans, he grew up deep in the Atchafalaya Basin of Louisiana, where his ancestors settled 300 years ago. There, hunting and fishing trips provide the ingredients for communal gatherings, and these shrimp and crawfish boils, whole-hog boucheries, fish frys, and backyard cookouts -- form the backbone of this book. Taking readers from the backcountry to the bayou, Toups shows how to make: A damn fine gumbo, boudin, dirty rice, crabcakes, and cochon de lait His signature double-cut pork chop and the Toups Burger And more authentic Cajun specialties like Hopper Stew and Louisiana Ditch Chicken. Along the way, he tells you how to engineer an on-the-fly barbecue pit, stir up a dark roux in only 15 minutes, and apply Cajun ingenuity to just about everything. Full of salty stories, a few tall tales, and more than 100 recipes that double down on flavor, Chasing the Gator shows how -- and what it means -- to cook Cajun food today.
Down in Louisiana Honey Island Swamp you will usually find a gathering of "River People" at the camps and houseboats cooking up something good to eat. The main course will be whatever is in season to hunt or fish. While the tasty recipes are boiling in a big pot, frying on a butane burner or smoking in the pit, the "River People" provide some local entertainment with homegrown music. Dana's husband, Terral Evans, who appears in the TV show, "Swamp People" is featured on the cover of this book and also in the book with his River Friends and Family. This unique culture and Southern Cajun recipes are preserverd in an assortment of cookbooks by Dana Holyfield-Evans.
Plant-based foodies rejoice: you can finally indulge in New Orleans' iconic cuisine thanks to the 130+ recipes in this first-ever Cajun vegan cookbook. Classic dishes like jambalaya, étouffée, gumbo, and hushpuppies have gone vegan in this delicious cookbook which blends Louisiana's beloved flavor profiles with plant-forward ingredients that are fresh and sustainable, yet still authentic and delicious. 130+ recipes inspired by the Big Easy (including 90+ gluten-free options): • Breakfasts and Breads: Molasses & Roasted Pecan Pancakes, Backwoods Buttermilk Biscuits and Gray, and Strawberry Peach Heart Tarts • Soups, Salads, and Poboys: Southern Belle Pepper Salad, Gulf Coast Oyster Mushroom Soup, and Swamp Queen Poboy • Entrees: Heart of the Bayou Étouffée, Jambalaya Collard Wraps, and Chili-Rubbed Butternut Squash Steaks • Sides: Fried Green Tomatoes, Kale & Tempeh'd Black-Eyed Peas, and Cajun Potato Wedges • Dressings, Sauces, and Toppings: Tangy Tabasco Dressing, Cajun Nacho Sauce, and Smoky Maple "Bacon" Bits • Desserts: French Quarter Beignets, Cinnamon King Cake, and Salted Pecan Pralines • Drinks: Jalapeño Cauldron Lemonade, Café Au Lait, and Hurricane Party Each of the recipes was created under the influence of powdered sugar, café au lait, Louisiana jazz, and a sprinkling of '90s jams by Krimsey Lilleth, founder of the late-and-great Los Angeles restaurant Krimsey's Cajun Kitchen. May this cookbook inspire you to try new things, have fun with your food, and be reminded that life is one big party. Enjoy! “Krimsey’s restaurant was a real favorite of ours. We had her food at Billie’s rehearsals often…fortunately for all of us, she just put out a Cajun vegan cookbook.” - Maggie Baird, mother of Billie Eilish and FINNEAS and founder of the plant-based food initiative Support+Feed
Cooking with Grease is a powerful, behind-the-scenes memoir of the life and times of a tenacious political organizer and the first African-American woman to head a major presidential campaign. Donna Brazile fought her first political fight at age nine -- campaigning (successfully) for a city council candidate who promised a playground in her neighborhood. The day after Martin Luther King Jr. was assassinated, she committed her heart and her future to political and social activism. By the 2000 presidential election, Brazile had become a major player in American political history -- and she remains one of the most outspoken and forceful political activists of our day. Donna grew up one of nine children in a working-poor family in New Orleans, a place where talking politics comes as naturally as stirring a pot of seafood gumbo -- and where the two often go hand in hand. Growing up, Donna learned how to cook from watching her mother, Jean, stir the pots in their family kitchen. She inherited her love of reading and politics from her grandmother Frances. Her brothers Teddy Man and Chet worked as foot soldiers in her early business schemes and voter registration efforts. Cooking with Grease follows Donna's rise to greater and greater political and personal accomplishments: lobbying for student financial aide, organizing demonstrations to make Martin Luther King Jr.'s birthday a national holiday and working on the Jesse Jackson, Dick Gephardt, Michael Dukakis and Bill Clinton presidential campaigns. But each new career success came with its own kind of heartache, especially in her greatest challenge: leading Al Gore's 2000 campaign, making her the first African American to lead a major presidential campaign. Cooking with Grease is an intimate account of Donna's thirty years in politics. Her stories of the leaders and activists who have helped shape America's future are both inspiring and memorable. Donna's witty style and innovative political strategies have garnered her the respect and admiration of colleagues and adversaries alike -- she is as comfortable trading quips with J. C. Watts as she is with her Democratic colleagues. Her story is as warm and nourishing as a bowl of Brazile family gumbo.
You can't go wrong with 13 chapters of backwoods Cajun cooking and lots of helpful hints. These are the favorite recipes of northern and southern Louisiana families. Join them in their best memories around the table. Benefits community projects.
