From Louisiana to California
From Louisiana to California
The summer always reminds me of our travels visiting family and friends from Louisiana to California and places in between. These experiences led to joining 13 different wine clubs, discovering a wide variety of foods and cultures and learning how to enjoy the day’s adventures while still having dinner on the table when my friends arrived home.
My obsession with food and wine began with frequent trips to New Orleans in the 1990s. It was there that I discovered fresh seafood, Cajun and Creole cuisines and the Rouses grocery store in Metairie. The store, which sits next to the Acme Oyster House, has an incredible wine selection and tons of local produce and Louisiana products. While most of my friends went to New Orleans to drink and party in the French Quarter, I went to hang out in grocery stores and restaurants.
Some of the best things the Crescent City has to offer can be a bit touristy, but if you’re looking for something outside the usual routine, try Magazine, Tchoupitoulas, the CBD or City Park for restaurants and activities that don’t necessarily involve alcohol or beads.
A turning point in my life came when I first met my in-laws from Sulphur, Louisiana — the trailer park suburb of Lake Charles — who taught me all about Acadiana, its people, culture, music and food festivals and, of course, Mardi Gras season. The Fontenots accepted me as their own, and now, “The Waterboy” feels more like a family biography than a Hollywood movie.
Ingredients:
1 box (5.3 ounces) instant vanilla pudding
2 cups whole milk
1 can (14 ounces) sweetened condensed milk
24 ounces heavy whipping cream
1 tablespoon vanilla
1/4 cup granulated sugar
5 bananas, sliced thin
1 box mini Nabisco vanilla wafers
Preparation:
In a medium bowl, combine pudding mix, milk and condensed milk. Once mixed, place in the refrigerator.
In a large bowl, blend heavy cream, vanilla and sugar until firm peaks form.
By the time the whipped cream is done, the pudding mix will be set enough to combine.
Combine the two mixes, layer mix, bananas and wafers. Good immediately, better later, best tomorrow.
Makes about 12 servings.
The patriarch, Odis Fontenot, would cook and eat pretty much whatever he came across, whether it was meat of some sort or something he found wandering in his backyard; he was about as Cajun as it gets. I’m still not certain I ever fully understood anything he said, he would go from French to English to some south Louisiana dialect that only a handful of people could comprehend. Odis loved food, though, especially beans with bacon. The recipe for Odis’ Baked Beans is a collaboration of ours, and we’ve never had a complaint.
Food and wine were at the forefront of my trips to visit friends in Millbrae and Stinson Beach, California. In exchange for hosting me, I would cook them dinner each day. They would go to work in the city (San Francisco), and I would take off for Sonoma and Napa Valleys to visit as many of the restaurants, wineries, markets and grocery stores as I could fit in my schedule. With so many cool places like Point Reyes, Petaluma, Sonoma, St. Helena and Yountville, it was difficult to fit it all in.
On one such excursion, I was at Far Niente enjoying a food and wine pairing. After the tasting, I hung around to ask the host about other foods to go with their red wines. He suggested a lamb slider with Manchego cheese on a King’s Hawaiian Roll. I’d never tasted ground lamb, but he assured me it wasn’t gamey or strange and that I should give it a try.
Ingredients:
For the sliders:
2 pounds ground lamb
1 egg, large
Salt, to taste
Pepper, to taste
2 Roma tomatoes, sliced
1/3 pound Manchego cheese
12 King’s Hawaiian sweet rolls
3 tablespoons melted unsalted butter
For the mayonnaise:
12 ounces mayonnaise
1 1/2 tablespoons mild yellow curry powder
For the sweet potato fries:
1 bag Alexia seasoned sweet potato fries, frozen
Follow directions on the bag of sweet potato fries, cook first.
Preparation:
In a small bowl, add curry powder to the mayonnaise and stir until well combined. The mixture should turn yellow. Set aside.
To make the sliders, slice each tomato into 6 slices for a total of 12, and slice the Manchego cheese into 12 slices. Then, in a large bowl, combine lamb, egg, salt and pepper and mix well. Separate the mixture into about 3-ounce patties and flatten. Cook on a medium-high grill or skillet for about 6 minutes and turn over. Add a cheese slice to each and cook for about 5 minutes or to your preference.
To cook the rolls, halve the sweet rolls at their equator, keeping them in one large piece. Brush melted butter onto both sides of the rolls. Place the rolls onto the grill or skillet to warm.
Makes about 12 servings.
I thought the slider was a little dry, so after several experiments, the final recipe was reached by adding curried mayonnaise and sweet potato fries as a side. Most people think all curry is hot, so lots of my friends were apprehensive. We came up with the idea to use a mild yellow curry that has great flavor without heat. After finally convincing them not to use ketchup, everyone loved dipping the fries in the curried mayonnaise. It’s been a staple around the house for years now.
Pair the beans and lamb sliders with most red wines, especially blends. Since we’re not in California, I now pair them with French Connection Syrah or Petite Syrah and Pedernales Valhalla. The smokiness of the grilled burgers and beans comes alive with these wines.
During culinary school, I worked in a bakery in Waco specializing in wedding cakes. It was, without question, the best in town and everyone wanted them for their weddings. While there, I learned several life lessons: the mother of the bride is evil, I’ll never bake a cake again, lots of people don’t eat vegetables and most twenty-something kids won’t try new foods.
Ingredients:
For the bacon jam:
1 pound thick-cut bacon
2 tablespoons reserved bacon grease
3 large sweet onions, minced
1 1/2 teaspoons minced garlic
1/3 cup apple cider vinegar
1/4 cup maple syrup
1/2 cup light brown sugar
1 teaspoon chili powder
For the beans:
2 cans (16 ounces) pinto beans
1/2 cup ketchup
1/2 cup Sweet Baby Ray’s BBQ sauce
4 tablespoons light brown sugar
1 tablespoon Worcestershire sauce
2 teaspoons liquid smoke
2 teaspoons mustard
2 teaspoons smoked Tabasco sauce
1 teaspoon black pepper
1 teaspoon kosher salt
Preparation:
To make the bacon jam, heat the oven to 400 F. Place bacon on a baking sheet and cook for about 20 minutes until nearly done, but not crispy. Remove and place bacon pieces on a paper towel-lined plate and pat off excess grease. Chop the bacon into small pieces. Heat the reserved bacon grease in a medium-high skillet. Add minced onions to the skillet and cook for about 5 minutes or until translucent. Add garlic and cook for 1 minute. Add the bacon back to the skillet. Then, add the maple syrup, brown sugar, apple cider vinegar and chili powder. Cook approximately 5 minutes or until the added liquids are reduced by half.
To cook the beans, preheat the oven to 325 F. Drain and rinse the beans. Then, pour beans into a baking dish, add bacon jam and remaining ingredients and mix well. Cover and cook for 2 hours.
If the cook time is less, the beans will be crunchy with too much resistance
Makes about 12 servings.
My fellow employees saw how much I disliked wedding cakes and eventually gave me a chance to pursue desserts that didn’t involve mostly angry customers. During that time, I developed lots of terrific recipes, including a banana pudding that even the twenty-something kids loved. The invention of the mini vanilla wafer (one of the best inventions ever) made the step of having to break up or crush the normal vanilla wafers obsolete. The dachshunds love this recipe, as I tend to be a little sloppy with the bananas and making the whipped cream, so they wait patiently to help me with my spills and floor mistakes.
I’m old and too lazy to make my own custard anymore, but I promise everyone will love it. Use vanilla pudding, not banana pudding (it’s terrible), and use whole milk because it does make a difference. For the bananas, try to buy them somewhat green because they will get mushy in the pudding and turn brown quicker if you don’t. The whipped cream can get messy, so use a large bowl or your floors will be covered in white glops. After adding the wafers, save some to put on top and make it look, in Odis’ words, “real nice.” When finished, it will not be pudding with some stuff, but rather a chunky banana/wafer mix held together by pudding.
