maw-maw and dem’s cajun blog
 

Archive for September, 2004

Poodoos are people too!

September 29th, 2004

As kids in Kaplan, one of the worst things you could have been was “a big poodoo.” I thought that poodoo was universally known and continued using it when I moved here to California. To my surprise, nobody knew what I was talking about so I told them this…

Many fights have broken out because someone called someone else a Poodoo. I dont know if its spelled Pudu, but kids have always spelled it poodoo.It basically started out as meaning “extremely poor” or “an extremely poor person”. Then it started evolving over the years. It could also mean “no class”, “cheesy”, “dumb”, “hated it” ..just all around bunk. Anything with a negative connotation can be poodoo. A few examples:

“Why is she dating him? He’s so poodoo.”
“Does this shirt look poodoo?”
“Our new library has poodoo orange carpets”
“My hair looks poodoo”
“Leaving your Christmas lights up till July is pretty poodoo.”

Poodoo seems to be quite catchy. My friends here in Los Angeles now use it.

The story behind it is that a really poor family with the name “Poodoo” or “Pudu” lived in Kaplan and they were so poodoo that their name just stuck. “If you touch the floor, you are a Poodoo.”

The road that the family lived on is still called Poodoo Road by local residents. Its official name, however, is Merchant Road —  named after a not-so-poodoo family, the Merchant’s.–>


click the picture to see Poodoo Road

So the next time you see a car propped up on cement blocks in a yard with knee-high grass, you’ll know exactly how to describe it — totally poodoo.

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More stories from Cajun Country…

September 27th, 2004
I knew I’d be in for a great weekend when within 10 minutes of getting to Kaplan, I jumped in a 4-wheel drive and went to help get my friend, Danny, out of the mud. His little two-wheel drive truck had gotten "bogged" in the mud in a rice field and I went down with his brother to help pull him out. I say help but what I really mean is I went there to laugh at him and take pictures ;) And take pictures I did!

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I even have a little video of it here. It took awhile for them to get out because the mud was so deep. Tee Tom, Danny’s older brother, had to end up making his way through the rice field and come back up to pull danny forward. Kind of hard to explain but it took some engineering! ;)

After that excitement, Tilly and I were addicted and wanted more. We asked Danny to take us 4-wheeling and he and his friend Cedric took us Saturday and Sunday. We saw some of the most beautiful scenery that I’d seen in Kaplan. I don’t think it can come across properly in pictures but I was totally impressed.

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The white cup you see above was a pina colada daquari purchased through a drive-through daquari shop. People are shocked to hear that we have those. Yep, we’ve got that and drive-through tobacco and boiled crawfish stores.

After a night of partying until sunrise with drive-thru daquaris, we picked up another friend, Niki and headed to a rice field for a little bit of "mud riding" or mudding. This was one of the best parts of the trip! We dropped by Danny’s uncle’s place and interrupted his frog-leg & fish fry to ask if he could take us out in his monster Jeep. He was so sweet and indulged in us!

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The first picture is a "before" shot of the Jeep we are about to go riding in. It was a monster. The second one is of my farming friend Danny on his cell phone. I think it’s cool how farming has mixed with technology. His cell phone seems like nothing when compared to some of the laser guided farming equipment he showed me on the way.

I included the last picture because I felt that while it may be a tad inappropriate, it’s 100% Cajun. Growing up, we’d tinkle just about anywhere. Often we’d stop on back roads and in this case, I went behind some tall grass in a rice field. Talk about fun! ;)

Next, the actual mudding! It was so much fun! Tilly, Niki, Danny’s Uncle D and I got into his massive Jeep and he took us for a wild ride. I didn’t expect to get caked in mud while in the covered backseat but I did. After a few minutes of non-stop laughter and screaming, Uncle D dropped me and Niki off and he went back to two-wheel with Tilly. He didn’t tell Tilly but when you put it in two-wheel drive, the back tires give the truck a bit of a mud shower. Tilly was covered from head to toe by the time she got out!

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Laissez Les Bon Temps Rouler! (Let the good times roll!)

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Taste-temptin, two-steppin, toe-tappin good time.

September 27th, 2004
I just returned from an amazing weekend in Cajun Country. You really gain an appreciation for the unique culture found there when you leave for long periods of time. I spent most of my time in Kaplan and I just had a blast. Partying in Cajun Country is so different from the partying I’m used to here in Los Angeles. There’s no competition. No pretention. Just good times sitting on a porch drinking with good people. I kept you all in mind when I visited and made sure to take pictures that might interest you.
 
One of the biggest differences I notice is that we like to drink, eat and dance a hell of a lot and Cajun music is just as much a part of our CD collections as pop, country and r&b. When you go out in bars, there will be lots of drinking, smoking and two-stepping.
 
We are taught from an early age to two-step and we generally pair with a good friend that will be our favorite two-stepping partner for the rest of our school years. Many times it goes beyond that into adult-hood. Girls often pair with other girls and sometimes boys will pair with other boys although its not as common. Girl/boy pairing doesn’t usually happen until high school. This is nothing scientifically researched.. just something I’ve observed over the years.
 
Here are some pictures of young Cajuns two-stepping at a local Kaplan bar. The dancing partners in the first picture were seen dancing almost exclusively with one another each night.
 
  
 
If you’d like to learn how to cut the rug like a Cajun, you can learn to dance @ Tabasco.com. Tune to Internet streaming radio at KBON.com for great Cajun beats to get you going.
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My old house from above

September 21st, 2004
I found a color aerial photo of my old house in Kaplan. I used to live in a lil part of town called "Coastal Heights" — it was about 1/2 mile outside of town but Mom still said that Main Street was too far for joy rides :|
 
You can click on the thumb below for a larger picture of Coastal Heights in Kaplan or you can find your own house at the MapLouisiana website.
 
 
P.S. Maw-Maw will be writing more in a lil while. She’s currently working on two big projects for the RealCajunRecipes website so it’s going to take some time. Meanwhile, you’ve got me :-D
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Cajun or Creole?

September 21st, 2004
After hearing me talk for a while, people often catch my mild accent. They usually ask where I’m from and sometimes they guess. The strangest guesses I’ve gotten are Australia, Canada, Germany and Boston. Nope, none of those! 
 
I always tell people I’m from South Louisiana making sure to put an emphasis on South. North Louisiana is a whole different state, I tell ya. After people find out where I’m from, I generally expect to hear something about one of three C’s — Cooking, Cajun or Creole.
 
"Oh, you are one of them creole ladies." No, not quite.
 
I always thought of Creoles as people from the New Orleans area. They were Creole and we Cajuns were from around the Lafayette area. I often correct whomever I’m speaking to but over the years, I felt the need to tell a more accurate tale. "So what is the difference?" they’d ask. I generally said Creoles were from New Orleans and "they use more celery and celery seeds than we do." Later on, it seemed to me that being Creole also had something to do with being from Africa or the Carribean. To further confuse things, I know that we Cajuns are big fans of Tony Chachere’s seasonings but they call it Creole seasonings.
 
There’s a reason for so much confusion. After a bit of researching, Carencro High’s excellent webpage about Cajun Culture pointed me to CreoleInc.com. Creole Inc states that over the years, there have been more than 30 known definitions for the term "creole." The one they have decided on and adopted as the official definition is individuals of African descent whose cultural roots have been influenced by other cultures such as French, Spanish, and/or Indian. 
 
So now it appears the definition is as clear as black and white ;)
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So…how’s the weather?

September 18th, 2004
Tonight I added a Weather webpage to RealCajunRecipes. It took several hours to make but it was worth the investment. I had it in the past but it broke and I had to take it down. Mom said that she missed it after it was gone– seeing the cities in Acadiana and their temperatures made her feel closer to home.
 
I have only the cities in Acadiana listed. Now my method of gathering them could be wrong but I basically got all the city names and zips for cities with zip codes between 70500 and 70599. You can see the complete list of cities if you go to the Weather webpage and scroll towards the bottom ("Find weather information for …"). Are there any that don’t belong? Of course all the little towns like Nunez and Cossinade (sp?) aren’t there. Only the "bigger" towns like Kaplan ;)
 
The page is still barebones right now. I plan to make it a lot prettier and I’ll probably add some more features. When we add a new section to the website, the first thing we try to do is to create a new Alphonse banner. I predict that the new Alphonse will have an umbrella and some rainy clouds for our new weather section. Stay tuned :)
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Ragin Cajun

September 16th, 2004

After years of searching, I finally found awesome Cajun food (outside of my kitchen) in Southern California! The place is called Ragin Cajun and its in Hermosa Beach, California. Hermosa Beach is a beautiful beach town south of LAX airport — about 25 minutes from downtown.

I found their website while searching for Cajun stuff on Google and after reading the "About Us" page, I decided to give it a shot. The owner is from Lafayette, afterall. And not only that, he’s a Domingue from Lafayette!

I ordered the fried catfish, fried froglegs and broiled catfish covered in crawfish etouffee. It was amazingly authentic! I was so excited I started talking a million miles an hour.

I figured this great experience called for a celebration and I celebrated with my favorite dessert — bread pudding in rum sauce. It did not dissapoint and the pecans they added gave it a nice Cajun touch.

I’m going to write an article about it soon but until then, here are teaser pictures.

To top it all off, I found out that the server was also from the Lafayette area. We talked for a little bit and even discovered that we knew some of the same people. What a small, delicious world :-D

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Gaston

September 16th, 2004
When I was growing up in the early 80’s, one of my favorite gifts was `a book called "A Cajun Night Before Christmas" by James Rice. If I recall correctly, the story starred an alligator named Gaston which was our version of Rudolph. The book was written in ol’ Cajun dialect "Twas dey night befo’ Christmas an’ all tru dey house.." and it was a bit hard to read but I still loved it. I loved the book so much, in fact, that I begged my mom to get the rest of the Gaston series. A few of the titles included
 
Gaston the Green-Nosed Alligator Gaston Drills and Oil Well The Cajun Alphabet
Gaston Goes to Mardi Gras Gaston Lays an Offshore Pipeline Gaston Goes to Texas
If you’d like to give your children the gift of Gaston, you can buy James Rice’s books at Pelican Publishing Online or Amazon.com!
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Mission Statement

September 11th, 2004
We decided to create this web log (blog) or online journal because there was an overflow of questions coming into maw-maw through the Ask Maw-Maw page on RealCajunRecipes.com. It seemed as though people really wanted to know more about Cajun culture and Cajun life in general. A journal gives us a platform for sharing our experiences as both Cajuns living in Acadiana and our journies as displaced Cajuns. The three creators of the site will be involved. Here’s a quickie intro for each of the bloggers.
 
Chrissy - I’m a young Cajun, born and raised in Kaplan, and I come from the following families: Bourque, Faulk, LeMaire and Lange. I’m currently living in Los Angeles. I moved to Southern California back in 1997 (I was 19) and I miss home a lot but I really enjoy living in L.A. I’ve made it my mission to introduce as many people as possible to both Cajun Culture and Cajun Food. I’ve got a lot of people hooked and now some of my friends even make Cajun food for their family and parents!
 
Maw-Maw - The mysterious Maw-Maw is a grandma of 9 years. She’s actually my mother and grandma of my niece and nephew, Maddie and Everette. She relocated to Phoenix but spends about 4 months of the year visiting in Louisiana. She’s even got her own room at her friend’s house in Forked Island. Maw-Maw comes from the familes Lange,  Richard, Bourque and Mouton.
 
Brandon - "Buns" and I have been knowing one another since high school (go KHS!) and he moved out to San Diego back in 2000. He currently lives in beautiful Coronado Island and makes an awesome crawfish fettucini. Brandon comes from the families Abshire, Dartez, Hebert, and Mayes.
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