Wandering Browns

We left Louisiana a few months ago, but I never had the chance to write about the delicious Cajun food we sampled while we were there. We had some favorites, and some misses, but here it goes: Pistolettes: image credit  here Pistolettes: These little fried roll things are a delicacy that I had never heard of before. It is basically a roll stuffed with etouffee of some sort, and then fried. With the wonderful gravy inside, it tastes like you're eating a slightly crunchy, flaky roll full of spicy gravy. There really are no words. We had crawfish pistolettes and cheese pistolettes, and I never found one I didn't like. étouffée:   This gravy-based dish, served over rice most commonly with crawfish or other seafood cooked into it, is complex in flavor and often a little spicy. This is comfort food to the max and if I was in doubt as to what I wanted to eat, I always ordered the crawfish etouffee. Recipe and photo cred Boiled Crawfish: This is a required cultural expe...

The Mardi Gras celebration in southwest Louisiana is the second largest celebration in Louisiana behind New Orleans, so I would say that it is a pretty big deal here. We went to the Lake Charles Civic Center Saturday around lunch time for the gumbo cook-off. Apparently Mardi Gras krewes face off to see which krewe makes the best gumbo. People who want to try gumbo and other Mardi Gras treats pay $5 and can have as much gumbo and king cake and other sides as they want. Pretty good deal if you ask me! Austin with some gumbo When we first arrived, the room was packed full of people- most in costume or at least matching T-shirts. Everyone seemed to know what they were doing, and I was just not quite sure what to do. Do we pay for the big bowls of gumbo? Do we have to go up and ask or something? We walked through the thick crowd on one side of the room, and there was not any food out to try. I was confused about how this all worked, because everyone seemed to have bowls of gumbo an...