Back in 1997, I was a student living miserably in Natchitoches, Louisiana. Unbeknownst to me at the time, North Louisiana was not part of Cajun Country. I moved there and was soon asking, “Where are all the Catholic Churches, seafood resturants and warm people?” The people in Natchitoches had a strange accent and prided themselves not on how well they could make a gumbo, but how well they could make a meat pie or wreath made of magnolia stems. Like the day I asked my mom why we never ate blackened food, I realized that I’d been mislead by popular media. Not everyone in Louisiana is Cajun nor can everyone in Louisiana cook well.

I wasn’t happy in Natchitoches; I found the Information Systems program at Northwestern State to be ultra-subpar. I wanted to be in a place that was on the cutting edge of technology and North Louisiana was not that place. The thought crossed my mind to do something drastic for broadband but I didn’t take the idea seriously until I asked the TCA cable guy when cable modems would be available. He looked at me and scoffed “Not anytime soon, that’s for sure.” After some prodding, I found out that broadband access would not be available there until 3 years later, in 2000. That day, I began looking around the country for suitable places to live, ie. places that provided cable modem service. After some thought, I decided on San Diego, California.

Fast forward nearly 10 years and I’ve made my way up the California coast, living as far away from Silicon Valley as Kaplan is from Lafayette (22 miles, give or take). Technologically speaking, Cajun Country has progressed by leaps and bounds. Lafayette is one of the first places in the entire US to offer municipal Internet access. While we don’t even have that here in San Francisco, Mountain View, home of Google and one of the towns in Silicon Valley, does provide municipal WI-FI but that project is being funded solely by Google. In a show of awesomeness, the citizens of Lafayette are funding their own damn network and they’ve even faced lawsuits by both Cox Cable and BellSouth to do so.

PBS.org has a special on the courage of Lafayette residents titled “The Net @ Risk: Fiber in Lafayette Louisiana.” You can read more there as well as watch the accompanying video (complete with Cajun accents that can take any displaced Cajun back home instantly).

Here’s a cute lil e-mail going around the Cajun circles… “Geaux”, for those who don’t know, is pronounced “Go.”

A Cajun’s Family Tree

• His dizzy aunt…..Vertie Geaux

• The brother who loved prunes…..Gotta Geaux
• The brother with constipation problems…..Neaux Geaux
• The cousin who worked at a convenience store…..Stop N Geaux
• The grandfather from Yugoslavia…..U Geaux
• The nephew from Illinois…..She Car Geaux
• His magician uncle…..Where Diddy Geaux
• The Mexican cousin…..A Me Geaux
• The Mexican cousin’s American sister…..Gring Geaux
• The nephew who drove an armored car…..Loomis Far Geaux
• The uncle serving time in Angola prison…..Lemme Geaux
• The ballroom dancer…..Tang Geaux
• The bird-lover uncle…..Flo Ming Geaux
• His over confident nephew…..E. Geaux
• The fruit-loving nephew…..Mang Geaux
• An aunt who’s an optimist…..Way To Geaux
• The bouncy little nephew…..Poe Geaux
• A sister who loves disco…..Go Geaux
• The niece who had an oversized van…..Winnie Bay Geaux
• The Italian grandmother…..Day Geaux

I was saddened to read in the headlines today that the long-time New York Times journalist, R.W. Apple, passed away. I wrote to Mr. Apple a few years back thanking him for a wonderful article on Kaplan, Suire’s Grocery, Cajun Food & Cajun History. In his article titled It Takes More Than Crayfish to Make a Cajun Wiggle, he writes..

Kaplan, La. HERE in the land of drive-through daiquiri joints and truck-stop casinos, you often eat better in grocery stores, butcher shops and cafes than you do in restaurants. There are exceptions, of course, but in Acadiana, as a rule, the more rudimentary the surroundings, the more genuine the grub.

Bare bulbs, in other words, are what you look for, not recessed lighting, paper napkins, not linen.

Another thing: the best Cajun cooking isn’t blisteringly hot, contrary to popular belief. It’s not about incinerating fish and meat. The guardians of regional tradition produce rich, slowly simmered soups and stews, more boldly flavored than most American food, yes, but not one-dimensional.

Take Suire’s Grocery, three miles south of here, on the edge of the rice country. The name rhymes with “beer,” the décor runs to soft-drink coolers and Formica tables and the menu lists some weird combos like crawfish fettuccine. But the crowds don’t come to Kaplan for that. Hunters out for duck and speckle-bellied goose stop in for the fabulous turtle sauce picante, which few cooks bother with anymore, or luscious, old-fashioned shrimp and egg stew, or deep-fried catfish, as crisp as tissue paper.

The entire article is great but that’s about all I can quote using fair use. He goes on to talk about turtle, mirlitons, tasso, grattons and even Cajun history. It’s rare to see such accuracy in popular media.

Au revoir mon ami, Monsieur Apple. Thanks again for representing us Cajuns so well.