Neal Pomea

I've never seen mayonnaise ON french fries, but in Belgian restaurants I see that pommes frites come with a container of mayo (aoli) on the side and you DIP one fry at a time into it. Just a little. It's not SPREAD over a pile of fries like ketchup. Maybe some places spread it over but I haven't seen that. I''m kinda surprised gumbo hasn't been mentioned. Wikipedia will usually says it's a soup or stew. I disagree. It's its own thing. I fix chicken soup, chicken stew, and chicken gumbo and they are all very different from one another. Well, chicken stew is closer to chicken gumbo than chicken soup is. But we call it chicken fricassee. Cajuns may state forcefully that gumbo has NO tomatoes in it. That's New Orleans style. I disagree with that too. I grew up in Vermilion parish which is one of the most Cajun parishes there is., Even when I went to school the cafeteria ladies fixed okra and shrimp gumbo and it DID have a little bit, not a lot, of tomato in it. It was definitely NOT a New Orleans recipe. I doubt those cafeteria ladies knew any New Orleans recipes! My mother used a little and so do I when I make it. How do you dress your hamburgers? I put ketchup on the bottom bun and mayo on the top bun. Lettuce and tomato and top of the patty. For steamed or boiled shrimp or crawfish a lot of Cajuns fix their own sauce at the table -- a mixture of ketchup, mayo, and worcestershire sauce. For oysters you vary that with a little bit of horseradish. Restaurants used to put all those ingredients on the table and you fixed your own sauce at the table. I don't know why but in English we don't say make something, we say fix something. But in French we DO say fait (make or do). Even in A Confederacy of Dunces, set in New Orleans, the characters say "Fix me a weenie" (Make me a hot dog) to the Lucky Dog representative. I guess it's both Cajun English and Yat.

I agree with Alan's remarks about her some time back. A much underrated jazz singer with a great voice and phrasing. We were lucky to have had her.

My all time favorite basketball player. It's good to know how respected he was.

Happy Happy!

Terrifying!

Funny! I know of a Cajun fiddler from Lake Charles named Nookie Martin. Meanings changed over time, I suppose! I remember Puggy Moity closer to my home. That man would run for more than one office at a time! He was supposedly a Private I who dug up the dirt on popular Edwin Edwards, using nicknames for Edwards like Tweety Bird, Chanel Number 5, etc. (If inappropriate just delete, don't ban me! ha!)

Thanks for all the birthday wishes!

Doesn't ring a bell. Google search showed he was from Thibodaux. Was he a character? Makes me think of Warren "Puggy" Moity.

Oh my! The rule of thumb in Cajun country is you go far away for your "favorite" crawfish boil place but as close as you can for your morning boudin! When I am in Lafayette LA visiting family I go no farther for boudin than Nu Nu's grocery in Maurice! And I mean to go to Hawks in Branch LA for crawfish even though Richard's Seafood Patio and Cajun Claws in Abbeville are closer!

Thanks to a kind man!

Happy!

Thank you Paul! Yes that's correct. To tell you the truth I had to look it up myself!

Hope it's a good one!

I didn't know this existed. Looked around a little bit and it's paired on CD with Songs of the Coal Mines. I've been wanting to find that Coal Mine Songs album since first hearing Doc Watson talk with Merle Haggard about it on Will the Circle Be Unbroken (with the Nitty Gritty Dirt Band) when it came out. On order! It's not the 78s but at least I will finally be able to hear it!

RIP! A couple of things I remember about his times at the Twist & Shout club in Bethesda, MD in the late 80s early 90s. He had a really HOT back up band, and the custom at the time was for the back up band to play a set to open up, then do a sort of build up, "And now! From deep in SW Louisiana, direct to your stage, one of the true icons of the blues, Your friend and mine, let's give him a hand! LAZY LESTER! THE GREAT LAZY LESTER!" And the crowd would of course go crazy, worked up by such an introduction! THEN he'd show up on stage and instead of performing he'd spend what seemed to me like 10 minutes slowing it down, checking every piece of equipment, stooping over his case of harmonicas, chatting with the crowd, sipping a Coca-Cola, doing I don't know WHAT til the whole build up for him had died down. THEN he'd launch off on the hottest music you ever heard! I'm a Lover Not a Fighter. Sugar Coated Love. I Hear You Knocking. Everything you wanted to hear. The second thing I remember about him is that when he'd end his first set he'd humbly invite you to stay for set 2. "We'll be back. We have nowhere to go and nothing to do when we get there." He's remembered for really co-engineering blues recordings with the very talented J.D. Miller in Crowley, LA for people like Slim Harpo and Lightnin' Slim, sometimes playing interesting percussion such as shaking a bicycle chain, playing bongos on a card board box, etc. Major talent!