Cajun Brewery Lafayette LA + Live Music and Local Art

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Cookies for One

[I have a thing I like to do. They call it cooking. There are a few favorite things I enjoy whipping up, but ultimately I enjoy all recipes, even if it only requires separating perforated cookie dough squares and arranging them on a pan.]

Last night I made quite the southern dish of rice and gravy with a side an entire plate of cookies. There were also some mashed potatoes involved, but I swear they weren’t instant. I wouldn’t be a real chef if I dared to make something so atrociously easy. Oh yes, that’s right, I am in fact not a chef. Thank you Idahoan loaded style instant mashed potatoes. Without you, how would I ever have gotten all of those chocolate chip packed squares divided in time? Whew.

After I clicked the last burner knob into the off position, I realized I hadn’t the slightest intention of eating anything I prepared. From the cookies to the ridiculous vat of rice and gravy, I had enough food and dessert to easily feed a family of four. Sadly, I am but one measly person. Why did I make an entire package of cookies? I don’t even eat cookies. Like ever. At least, I rationalized, the rice and gravy was not a lost cause seeing as I could eat off of that all week. But, the cookies? The cookies were futile.

I suppose what happened there was the result of my subconscious attempting to create a sense of false comfort by having a plate of cookies sitting on the kitchen counter. When you are young, single, and living in a tiny apartment where you can hear the next door neighbor blinking, it is easy to lose that i’m-at-home feeling. I must have absent mindedly come up with this cookie ploy while lost in the dairy aisle somewhere between the milk and I-can’t-believe-it’s-not-egg… or whatever. While I have yet to eat any of the cookies, maybe, just maybe, the maintenance guy will steal a couple while I am at work. That would be fantastic. I must go take cookie inventory now, but I have left last night’s non-meal recipe below. Bare with me, however, I am not good with specifics when it comes to seasonings. Just throw that shtuff in there until it tastes like Channing Tatum’s abs.

Festival International de Louisiane

Guess what? My little city is actually hosting a massively entertaining event that is going down this weekend (it actually begins tomorrow, but in my mind it isn’t until the weekend – way to go work). It is an all around, five-day, celebration of the arts in downtown Lafayette. There will be over 100 music performances, local food and drink vendors as far as the eye can see, and arts and crafts merchants on every block. Want some banana leaf art, botanical glass, or something fashionable from Africa or New York? You got it. I personally don’t take the food vendors lightly either. If you ever have the chance to attend this festival, I strongly suggest you do not either. We have some of the most serious grub at this thing. By serious, I mean orgasmic.

As I am writing about how incredible this happening is, I can’t help but feel a bit hypocritical.

Crawfish Withdrawal

Growing up in Shreveport, LA crawfish were not eaten so often as the deeper southern areas of Louisiana. Apparently Shreveport qualifies as a Texan city by most Cajuns, being that it is so close to the border. I have come to automatically expect being called out as a “Yankee” as soon as I mention my hometown anywhere south of Alexandria.

Anyway, I never liked crawfish growing up. This is sort of blasphemy, but it wasn’t a case of faulty taste buds. I may be a Yankee but my taste buds most certainly are not. No, the problem was that I was a lazy and picky eater (at least when it came to seafood). Not only was I never able to master the practice of peeling the mud bugs, but I was also annoyingly finicky about deveining. Okay, I admit I am still annoyingly finicky about the vein. Devein ALL the things!

When I moved to Lafayette, I soon became a part of many gatherings revolving around this delicacy.