Cookbooks and the recipes we cherish

Pork has never been made a regular appearance on my table, which may be why, after each of my few feeble attempts to cook a pork chop for my pork-chop-loving husband I sugest he just order them in a restaurant. (FYI: John highly recommends Palmer Crossing's chops)

After the last attempt he asked me, "Has pork always been cheaper than beef?"

I looked at him in bewilderment. How was I to know?

I was raised in a kosher-style house. We didn't drink milk at the dinner table, but usually had butter on the vegetables. We ate lobster and shrimp in restaurants, but I don't think my mother knew how to cook them. And the only pork I can ever remember in her fridge was bacon - served exclusively on BLTs.

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.