Day 42: Cajun and Creole Cooking Class with chef Richard Bond

We got up hecka early this morning (like 8:00am I think) in order to catch the ferry across the river to Algiers where our cooking class was located.


You could really see how high the river is at the ferry station. The chef said he would pick us up at the ferry station be we waited about 10 minutes (I was burning up in the heat) and called him to see where he was. He just gave us directions to his house which was thankfully only 2 or 3 blocks away. We had to call again when we got there to figure out which house it was. At this point I felt like maybe we were being scammed or something, or at the very least just not being treated like paying customers.


Richard turned out be legit, just very unprepared that day. We had to help him clean up his kitchen from a party the night before because he has a slew of medical problems that prevented him from moving around very quickly.


I don't think I agree completely with his cooking philosophies (he abhors measuring cups) but I definitely learned a lot throughout out the course of the class. It is normally only a four hour affair but Richard liked Mom (she is first person he has ever taught who asked if they could smoke while cooking- he thought that was pretty cool) so he took his time and stretched the class out to all day (10-5). Normally that would be great but we didn't get any lunch break (got a little hangry) and it sort of killed my plans for the afternoon.


Gumbo. It was a lot different than any other gumbos I've had, I assume because I've never had homemade or authentic gumbo before.

Creole shrimp. We also made some bread pudding. It was all delicious. Richard decided that I need to go into cooking as a career because apparently I have the right stuff. It was a little out of the blue but it's nice to have someone else tell you what you should be sometimes.

Back on the New Orleans side of the river we were right at Harrah's so we did a bit more gambling (I did not do very well at all) and then wandered over to Royal Street to peek into the closed antique shops. Mom said she was glad they were closed because she might have ended up buying something she couldn't afford if they weren't. Once we got to Jackson Square we found some psychics working late and I got a Tarot reading while Mom got a palm reading. My Tarot reader was pretty vague and not helpful but Mom's palm reader was actually psychic. So I got another reading from him while mom went to what he called 'the most boring bar in the French Quarter'. We mulled over the readings for a bit at the bar and then went to the only restaurant open late around there, Coop's Place. I had an epic jambalaya and mom had all manner of fried seafood. We weren't super hungry, we just wanted another meal in New Orleans before we left!

Next: Mom departs for PDX, me for Panama City Beach.


6/6/11