The cracklins. I found the cracklins. Turns out they didn't blow off onto the highway, and I chose not to think about what had. Instead, I ate them with my coffee, and this… this was a magnificent combination. You know how coffee after a bite of doughnut makes the fried flavor bloom, filling your mouth with richness? Yeah, it was like that, only spicy and piggy. Crunch crunch sip sip. Breakfast of champions.
While I was getting my day going this way, my friends were perusing the local festival calendar. "Hey, did you know we missed the Shrimp and Petroleum Festival?" they asked me. I have to confess that I wasn't terribly broken up over that, even if it is "Louisiana's Oldest State Chartered Harvest Festival." But when they told me about the Boys and Girls Club Wild Game, Seafood, and Jambalaya Cook Off that happened yesterday, I was distraught. I tried to assuage myself by saying that they're just boys and girls. But then again, people here probably learn to cook when they're 6.
I started to wish that I'd grown up here.
We took a leisurely route back home, detouring to see the Tabasco hot sauce factory, because I'm a sucker for factory tours, and Avery Island boasts an alluring swamp garden. Plus I kind of remember growing up on Tabasco sauce, dousing it on noodles when I was a kid. The tour was fine, interesting if a little greased up with PR unctuousness. But I didn't foresee how I would instinctively react when I saw that massive, iconic Tabasco bottle:
(Photo: Kristen "Kristen" Zeiber)
Maybe I was home, after all.
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