Wow. Our afternoon visit to the New Orleans School of Cooking on St Louis Street in the French Quarter was a lot of fun – and well worth its own write up among all the entries in my Dixie Detours miniseries.
My experience attending a cooking class during past holidays has been hit or miss. They can be a great success or a big waste of time. Luckily, this time round was very much the former.
During our session, Kemey and I (along with maybe 30 or so other folks) learned how to make chowder, étouffée, and pralines. The recipes weren’t too complex (pralines seemed dead easy to make). I could totally recreate what I saw happening there with some success. And I have the feeling that if I kept at the recipes, I could be cookin’ up Cajun and creole storms of yumminess here in my London kitchen in no time. There was plenty of food to go round during the class. It was all gorgeous too. Plenty of awesome Abita Amber (or tea) to wash it done as well.
Our chef, Michael W DeVidts, was competent, comical and compelling in his storytelling as he blended heaping helpings of Louisiana history in with his explanations of how to prepare the three dishes. He also laid down some basics of Lousiana cookery that’ll come in handy more generally when I’m preparing meals. Afterwards Micheal shared some killer tips with Kemey and me for enjoying the rest of our day – get some pecan brittle down the street at Leah’s; have dinner at Adolfo’s while on Frenchmen Street.
The front of house at the New Orleans School of Cooking is a gift shop done up like a country grocery. There was a bit of schlock for sale but also lots of local ingredients that might be hard to find elsewhere (especially when your elsewhere isn’t even in the same country). I picked up a couple of tubes of gumbo filé!
Find out more at neworleansschoolofcooking.com.
Keep an eye out for more tips on how to spend your time while in Louisiana along with the highlights from all my Dixie Detours road trip across Georgia, Tennessee, Alabama, and Florida with suggestions for planning your own southern sojourn. If y’all ain’t never been to the places mentioned in the series miniseries, I reckon you’re missing out.
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