New Orleans growing season

The more I think about this blog the more I realize I should have named it New Orleans culture. To understand New Orleans food is to understand New Orleans culture. New Orleans food is more than just a grocery list, it is what makes New Orleans, New Orleans. It is impossible to talk about one without the other.

One aspect of New Orleans is our weather. We are subtropical and have a long growing season. We start planting tomatos as early as late February sometimes. Surely by March 15th all plants are in the ground. Eggplants like the one pictured was planted some time in June and will produce none stop til probabaly around November. Plants like eggplant and okra like it hot so we plant those late. By the end of summer we'll have our second crop of tomatos planted for the fall. Tomatos will also produce until late November or so.

So you see a large part of cooking is what you have access to. In New Orleans we have access to fresh food most of the year. In addition we have the Gulf of Mexico 80 miles south. We also have Lake Pontchartrain just north of the city. Some of the best crabs in the country come out of this lake.

I had dinner with two good neighbors, Brock and Paul last night. Paul, who has a cajun heritage, was telling us of one of the dishes he ate as a kid. I asked Paul if he would like to be a contributor to this blog and he agreed. You will all be in for a great treat when Paul tells his stories and recipes.

Well off to get cleaned up from yard work. My wife and I are going to reward ourselves with a "SNOBALL". Snoballs. That sounds like my next post. Happy cooking! Continue …