If you like Cajun cooking, these books should be on your shelves!

The WHO'S YOUR MAMA, ARE YOU CATHOLIC AND CAN YOU MAKE A ROUX? is one that's close to my heart. My family's life revolved around food and this book is all about that! Buy It Here.

When we gathered for Sunday dinners or holiday meals, aunts and uncles, cousins and friends joined us for perfectly roasted chicken, rice dressing, baked sweet potatoes and homemade pecan pie.

Many weekends during the summer months was spent at our humble but comfortable camp on the banks of Catahoula Lake located near the Atchafalaya Basin. There we enjoyed fish-fries, seafood boils, and barbecues with all the appropriate side dishes like Mama's potato salad with homemade mayonnaise, smothered eggplant with shrimp, maque choux (smothered fresh corn off the cob) and lots of homegrown vegetables---tomatoes, okra, stuffed bell peppers and stuffed mirlitons.

If we weren't at the Catahoula camp, we could be found at the camp at Cypremort Point on Vermilion Bay. There our meals were supplied from the bay or the nearby Gulf of Mexico. Our nets (baited with chicken necks) brought in beautiful blue crabs which were boiled or plunked into a rich gumbo. Freshly-caught shrimp could be fried, boiled or made into a cool salad plopped on top of thick slices of tomatoes. Ah, and the fish---speckled trout, redfish, red snapper and flounder---all found their way into our pots on the old stove in the big kitchen.