Talk About Food

Beginning August 17, I’ll be doing a live food/talk show on KKAY 1590 AM radio.  The show will air from 3:15 TO 4:30 every Friday afternoon.  If you’re not in the broadcast area, you can go to their website www.kkay1590.com and listen to a live feed. 

My co-host, David Dawson, and I are looking forward to lots of fun during these shows and hope that you will call in to participate.  We’ll be discussing local ingredients, the local cuisines, and just about anything that has to do with food.

This week I’m heading to Natchez, Miss., one of my favorite southern historic towns, to participate in the Natchez Food and Wine Festival.  There will be several events, including a Royal Wine and Cheese tasting with Paul Burrell who once served as butler to the late Princess Diana, and a fun mixology class with Natchez native, my pal Denise Gee.  She will also have on hand her book "Southern Cocktails–Dixie Drinks, Party Potions, and Classic Libations" that was published this summer.

My contribution to the weekend event is preparing a meal with Valerie and John Bergerson, owners of Pleasant Hill Bed and Breakfast.  The repast will include artisan goat cheese (made by my cousin Wanda Broussard from St. Martinville), gazpacho with shrimp and guacamole garnish, crabmeat Imperial, and gateau de sirop (syrup cake) with bourbon-scented sabayon.

If you’re in the area, come join in the fun!

The summer is droning on in the Deep South and I’m sad to report that most of the home gardens are winding down.  But I’m happy to say that I had my fill (almost) of delicious homegrown Creole tomatoes, sweet corn, okra, eggplant, cucumbers, yellow squash and zucchini.  I did manager to “put up” bread and butter pickles, maque choux (smothered corn), lots of okra to use in my gumbos, and several containers of eggplant and Louisiana shrimp casserole.  And, I now have about 12 quarts of fig preserves to use during the coming months—yum!  I love fig preserves on toast, biscuits, cornbread and pancakes—there’s really nothing better!  Next week, I hope to put my hands on locally-grown mirlitons (also known as chayote) to make mirliton pickles (great in martinis) and perhaps some stuffed mirlitons