Happy New Year, Ya'All

NEW IBERIA, LA - I've been in synagogues all over the country and around the world, but rarely stray far from home for Rosh Hashanah, the Jewish New Year. So when we booked Jet Blue's All You Can Jet passes and decided to spend the first week in Southern Louisiana, I realized this would be a perfect opportunity to join the small congregation in New Iberia, where the Jewish families my husband grew up with worshipped.

We'd walked around the outside of Gates of Prayer on our last trip and recognized many of the names memorialized on the stained glass windows, including the Wormsers, who owned clothing stores in Franklin, Jeanerette and New Iberia. But the building is open only for worship, and we were in New Iberia for lunch on a weekday.

What's Cajun?

Over the past decade or so, since Cajun food became a fad, there's been a mistaken belief that Cajun food is about spice that burns the inside of your mouth, instead of just giving you that nice warm feeling as it makes its way down to your stomach.

Those in the know, my husband John Boudreaux included, have always been slightly amused - dismayed may be a better word - at this.

So there we were, on our first stop on our Jet Blue "all you can jet" journey, driving from Madisonville, LA  where his sister lives to his home town in Franklin, when he got a hankering to visit a restaurant he frequented in his many trips to LSU in Baton Rouge.

Pat's Fisherman's Wharf in Henderson is off the beaten path, but in the 40+ years since John graduated it has developed a reputation as the crawfish capitol of the world.