did I learn cooking from my mom? or is it NOLA’s food teaching me how to cook?

COOKING!! This week assignment is to cook. I am so excited to know that my assignment is to cook. Usually I prepare my own manus. This time I start by reading the cookbook that my professor handed to me. Its title is “Who’s Your Mama, Are You Catholic, and Can You Make A Roux?” The title of this cookbook is really appealing. I already feel that I read the book before. It has an introduction, a body, and a conclusion in its title. The introduction is: your background, the body is: your religion and social life, and the conclusion is: can you cook. When I start flipping through the book, I notice that the recipes are divided in response to the four seasons of the year. And since we are in the fall, I decide to cook a dish from the fall section. The fall here is different from the fall in Lexington. The trees do not change in color, the leaves do not fall on the ground, and the weather is not as cold. But yet I feel that we are in the fall season because it is a little cold now.

The cookbook is filled with delicious dishes like: Duck, Oyster & Andouille Gumbo, Keith’s Smothered Quail, Wild Rice Torres, and more. Choosing a dish from the cookbook to prepare is a little hard considering I am a Muslim and also a student with a budget. As a Muslim I am not suppose to eat anything that contains pork, and as a student I have a certain limit to my budget. And therefore, I chose a dish that has no pork as well as cheap to prepare.

The dish I chose to cook was the Cajun Waldorf Salad. This time I decided to go grocery shopping from a farmer’s market. The food and the products here are organic and also fresh. I bought a couple of Granny Smith apple, some seedless raisins, some roasted pecans, and a bag of shredded lettuce. I got the other two recipes - lemon juice and mayonnaise - from Wal-Mart. As soon as I got home, I start preparing the dish. It was really enjoyable: the smell of apple, the texture of raisins and pecans, and the color of the lettuce. All these senses came together to make a really tasty salad. Yet I didn’t find the taste of New Orleans Culinary in it. I think the writer called it Cajun because she tried to fit it to the rest of her dishes in her book.

After doing some research, I discover that the soul of New Orleans Culinary is embedded in the Holy Trinity. It is the secret ingredients to the food in this city. It adds a unique taste, flavor, and smell to all the food. Consequently, I add these ingredients to my salad which includes celery, peppers, and onion. The smell of the celery, the flavor of the peppers, and the taste of the onion added a delightful taste to my salad. It tasted different and also weird. After all, I really enjoy preparing this dish, even though the salad I made doesn’t follow the correct recipes. I learn to prepare food differently from shopping to making.

my own Cajun salad recipe:

1 granny smith apple, cored and chopped

1 cup of seedless raisins

½ cup of chopped and roasted pecans

1 tablespoon of fresh lemon juice

mayonnaise, shredded lettuce

holy trinity to taste