Southern Livin’

We be eating good in Acadiana and wishing we spoke french so we know
what we be eating. We had planned for some time to go east on I-10 so
we could visit New Iberia, Louisiana, home of one of our favorite
writers, James Lee Burke. His many novels featuring the wayward lawman
Dave Robicheaux, are set in New Iberia and we just wanted to see where
Robicheaux and his pal Cletus Purcell hang out. It was great. We found
a bookseller who likes to talk about James Lee Burke (he was in town,
living in New Iberia in the winter and outside Missoula, MT in the
summer), and found some early Robicheaux books. Great.

Last week, about 35 miles from our destination, Dave pulled off the
road, telling me he was having a vision problem. His peripheral vision
was oily, distorted. I thought of a migraine, but he’s never had one
and didn’t have a headache. What he did have was shoulder and arm pain.
We weren’t really worried about a heart problem because the pain had
started in his shoulder blade about three weeks before, and seemed
muscle related. We planned to get it checked in Biloxi but now we knew
we had to get to an ER to get the vision thing checked. As we started
to unhook the car, Dave’s vision cleared up, so we drove the Bird 15
miles and got parked in an RV park, then went to a hospital in
LaFayette.

The first hospital we went to was an LSU hospital with an over-full
waiting area. No one checked us in for 15 minutes and the sheet on the
clipboard didn’t ask what we needed to be seen for, but asked “Are you
a prisoner?” We left without anyone caring.

The second hospital we found, Southwest Louisiana Medical Center, was
better. We were there nearly seven hours, and communication is not
their strength, but they ran all the tests to rule out stroke or heart
problems. Dave has a very healthy vascular and cardiac system. We saw
an opthamologist the next morning for a closer exam of his optic nerve,
which is fine. The doc says it is hard to diagnose migraine in single
vision people but that’s what he thinks it was.

Personally, I think the migraine was brought on by the shoulder pain.
The ER doc thought it was a rotator cuff tendonitis, but we aren’t in a
position now to confirm it with an MRI. So we decided to keg up for a
few days. We’ve been here in the Frog City RV Park for five days and
Dave is feeling better. He has been on vicodin and making sure not to
irritate the shoulder. We have taken some day trips and are already
planning to come back next year. We’ll head out to our Biloxi job in
the morning.

We are very close to the heart of Cajun Country and have loved being
introduced to this culture. A fifth of Louisiana’s population is Cajun,
descended from the tough band of French Catholics who fled to Nova
Scotia looking for religious freedom, then found their way to Louisiana
when they were run out of the north because they wouldn’t bow to the
British after the French-Indian wars. Cajuns have been discriminated
against for generations here in the south. They remain quite clannish,
devoted to family and most are involved in fishing or shrimping in the
southern Louisiana bayous.

I’m reading a great book (Bayou Farewell by Mike Tidwell) which is
shocking in its description of how the southern coast of the state is
disappearing. When the Mississippi levees were built in the 1930s, it
stopped the flow of silt that flowed down and replaced what the Gulf
pounded away. The oil companies have dug canals everywhere to lay pipe
and added to the instability of the marshlands, called the “trembling
prairie.” Gulf waters are pushing salt water into the marshes and
changing the ecosystem dramatically. Cajun shrimpers see their way of
life being washed away. Everyone can see the encroaching water as
cemeteries slide into the sea. These are all above-ground vaults, so
it’s very evident. Coastal wetlands have always been a buffer against
the storm surge that comes with hurricanes. They figure every 2.7 miles
of marsh grass absorbs a foot of storm surge. A century ago New Orleans
had about 50 miles of marsh grass between the city and the ocean; now
it has less than 20 miles.

We feel very fortunate to be able to experience this are while it is
still here. The damage from Hurricane Rita is very evident, but has
been cleaned up well. There are lots of boarded up homes and
businesses. One in particular testifies to the Cajun humor, even in the
face of adversity: “Grocery steaux, it no meaux!” New Iberia is quaint
and crooked, split by the Bayou Teche. Amaryllis grows along the
sidewalk, poinsettia grows in pots. Orange trees are heavy with fruit
and we’re eating fresh Louisiana strawberries. We have seen rookeries
of snow geese, many egrets, one alligator and a double crested
cormorant. I’m still looking for the roseate spoonbill.

Louisiana has offered us new culinary experiences. The best selling
cook book is “Who’s your mama, are you Catholic and can you make a
roux?” We tried boudin (pronounced boo-dan), which is a sausage made of
rice gravy, and God knows what animal parts. We ate boudin rolled in
balls and breaded with crushed pepper skins. Very spicy but served with
cool ranch dressing.

Seafood gumbo is really good, with tiny shrimp, crawfish and crab, in a
thick spicy roux. It is served with a bowl of white rice, seasoned with
green onion, and you ladle your gumbo juice onto the rice. I found it
very tasty, although the little crawfish bodies kind of bothered me.
Their little legs float. I tried not to look at what I was eating. Dave
had crab and corn bisque and said it was very good. I’m making
beignets, the happy dessert dumpling Steve and Sandra Miller introduced
us to a few years back. Lawd! We don’t usually eat out much, but we’ve
made an exception in Acadiana! If any of you have a recipe for “Liketa
died potatoes,” it will save me from calling that bookseller in New
Iberia. I just should have bought the book, because it is still talking
to me!

Wish you were here