Tag: Cajun

Chef Wanted: Low Pay, Few Benefits Other Than Resume Material

On By Malcolm R. CampbellIn Food8 Comments

Help Wanted: Personal Chef

Please supply references.

Personal chef and grocery shopper.

Prepare regular meals (including late-night snacks) and keep the pantry and fridge full.

Must not cook meals that look like those on Hell’s Kitchen, Master Chef, and Chopped.

No bloody rare steak.

No puree to decorate plate.

May be required to produce two dinners each night, standard Southern cooking for my wife and Seafood and Cajun dishes for me.

May need a pickup truck to haul beverages from the store to the house (sparkling water, bottled water, Coke, Wine, Scotch). The chef will be allowed two drinks per day but must supply his/her own mixers.

No accommodations other than an old chicken house.

Chefs who have worked at the sous chef level or higher at any or all of the following New Orleans restaurants will be given an automatic second interview: Brennans, Antoine’s, and Galatoires. Experience at the Biltmore Estate Restaurant in Asheville, NC is also desirable.

Chef will be terminated immediately if any dinner looks like it came from IHOP  or Golden Corral.

We eat off of TV trays while watching TV. Try to adapt to that.

Training at a top-of-the-line culinary school is a must.

We do not want to see any meals that originated in the home-economics tradition of the 1940s and 1950s.

Note: We measure the levels of alcohol in all bottles nightly.

No girlfriends or boyfriends allowed.

Easy work, we think, in a farm environment in NW Georgia. Your resume may include the fact that you were the personal chef of the author of the Florida Folk Magic series.

–Malcolm

I love spicey soups but need an Alka Seltzer chaser

On By Malcolm R. CampbellIn Food, writing2 Comments

When I came inside from yard mowing around lunchtime today, I poured a glass of Celtic Ale. Robbie, our indoor/outdoor cat who thinks anything on my TV tray belongs to him, tried to get the glass away from me. So Lesa poured a little in a saucer and he turned his nose up at it like that wasn’t the same stuff I had the glass.

What he does like is the really hot (spicey) Jazzy Jambalaya soup from Campbell’s. I have it with late-night movies but often need an Alka Seltzer as soon as I finish it. If I leave any in the bowl, Robbie jumps up on my TV tray and licks it all up. No chaser. No hairballs. No crazy behavior. What’s wrong with this kitty?

According to Campbell’s website, “This ready-to-eat soup is loaded with antibiotic-free chicken meat, Andouille sausage, rice, and cooked ham, plus veggies and a mixture of flavor-packed spices. Let’s not forget: our fill-you-up soup is also blended with a tasty cayenne pepper sauce that makes it a must-try for any Cajun food fanatic!”

I love Cajun food, so the soup works for me even though you probably won’t find it on the menu at the Atchafalaya Restaurant in New Orleans. They also serve Creole food, but I won’t hold that against them!

At one time, our family had a share or two of stock in Campbells. So, whenever somebody asked if we had anything to do with the soup company, we could shrug and say, “But of course, we do own stock.” But that’s long gone, so I can mention the soup without it being a conflict of interest.

—Malcolm

I’m addicted to Cajun food and it’s my parents’ fault

On By Malcolm R. CampbellIn Food, writing2 Comments

Our family went on a trip to New Orleans when I was in junior high school. I was already in love with the blues, but the food there was an epiphany. Living in North Florida, we already had plenty of seafood, much of which we caught, but I had no idea how much food could be “enhanced” before we made a tour of all the “in” places to eat in and around the French Quarter.

I’m the only one in the family who became addicted, so I have no volunteers when I say, “Who’s up for Cajun tonight?” or “Anyone want to go on a road trip to Louisiana?” So, I’m stuck with nothing better to do than sneak over to a Popeye’s for chicken and dirty rice when I’m out running errands.

Don’t forget the cornbread

Needless to say, yesterday’s post about Slap Ya Mama Cajun seasonings wasn’t a fluke. I could live on that kind of coolness–or, perhaps I should say “hotness.”

I should mention here and now that Creole food is okay, but it doesn’t quite cut it when I have a choice and can order Cajun food. And far be it from me to try to explain the difference here except to say that I take offense when people serve gumbo without any gumbo in it. Gumbo needs, of course, okra, not the filé powder people keep wanting to substitute. Above all else, Cajun is rustic!

I could live off of Cajun Jambalaya (unlike the Creole version, it has no tomatoes in it).  The Internet lists a few other ideas if you’re new at this:

  • Gumbo.
  • Boiled crawfish.
  • Pecan pie.
  • Boudin sausage.
  • Shrimp and grits.
  • Wild duck.
  • Alligator.

Hungry yet, Cher?

—Malcolm

Man arrested for slapping his mama

On By Malcolm R. CampbellIn Food2 Comments

Junction City Texas, April 19, 2022, Star-Gazer News Service–Joe Smith was arrested here today for slapping his mama silly while cooking up a frying pan of dirty rice with a tablespoon of hot blend Slap Ya Mama™ cajun seasoning for extra excitement.

According to police, Smith’s Cajun cookbook included a potentially apocryphal story that the seasoning sold by the Walker family of Ville Platte, Louisiana, made food so good you were supposed to slap your mama for never cooking anything that great.

According to the Walker Family, Anthony “TW” Walker (who invented the blend) has never slapped his mama, never even considered it. In reality, according to TW, ”When you use this seasoning, the food tastes so good, you’ll receive a loving slap on the back and a kiss on the cheek for creating such a great tasting Cajun dish.”

Smith’s attorney, Aurelie Jones said that Smith missed the memo and/or the footnote in the recipe about mama slapping.

“I thought I had to slap my mama just after mincing the chicken gizzards or the recipe wouldn’t work,” said Smith. “That mojo was the conjure behind the cooking.”

Smith’s father, Wesson, said that if his boy had been cooking Slap Yo’ Daddy BBQ, his son would be in the morgue because “Nobody slaps me and gets away with it. My wife Irene thinks the dirty rice faux pas was kind of funny after she iced down her face.”

The family is pressing assault and battery charges to “teach Joe a lesson.”

Jones told reporters that the dirty rice was spectacular, “though not worth jail time.”

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Story by Jock Stewart, Special Investigative Reporter