My new favorite thing: online food ordering. I do it at Pick Up Stix, Chili’s and Chipotle. I sashay past the long lines and pick up my order, already paid for. Quicker than ordering pizza delivery. Why don’t more places offer it??

In San Diego there are services where you can order from a number of restaurants and the delivery service will get it to you. Unfortunately we don’t live urban enough to have them deliver to us. Alas…

I didn’t know I was Cajun. I grew up in Texas and Arkansas, and we’d visit family in Louisiana, but I didn’t know.

I didn’t know when we put red pepper on everything, or when my parents stunk up the house with roux for gumbo, that meant we were Cajun.

I very truly didn’t know I was Cajun until college. When I met a boy (and later married him) who looked at a photo of my dad eating bread pudding and said, “That’s Cajun. You’re Cajun.”

Doesn’t everyone eat bread pudding? Etouffee? Strong coffee?

Turns out my husband is from the coast of Mississippi, which is also Cajun. He knows.

As I’ve gotten older, I’ve become more interested in my roots. And the food. (Oh the food!)

The History

So a quick lesson: some French people decided to leave France and find a better life in northeastern Canada (Nova Scotia). The Brits, being stubborn like they are, decided they didn’t like the people there (who had become known as the Acadians) and pushed them out. Since Louisiana had ties to France, they moved there. Acadians became Cajuns (probably with a drunk slur it devolved to that word) and the rest is history (more or less; I don’t promise to know my Cajun history perfectly).

Louisiana is swampy, so the animals that live there are crawfish, seafood and things like nutria rat (we will NOT go into the story about the guy who hunted them). The Cajuns learned to cook with these animals. They put a lot of red pepper on them, I guess to cover their swampy taste.

What It Means to Me

Yes, I eat crawfish. But I don’t suck the head. I can party down with a bowl of jambalaya or etouffee like a born and bred Cajun. When we go to Louisiana (pronounced Loo-zee-ana in my family), I soak up the flat accents and croon my neck at the grocery store to hear a bit of Cajun French, nearly impossible for my college-trained French speaking ear to translate.

Every trip down to see my family means there’s one less left. I ask my grandma stories. I listen to the music. Growing up, my Mom said being Cajun wasn’t cool. It was “coonass,” which, as you can tell, ain’t a very nice thing to call people. Now there’s been a resurgence in popularity of Cajun culture, and I’m right there for it.

There are so few factions of subcultures in the US. One day, everyone in Louisiana will speak only English. Cajun food will be like Italian food – available in every city. But until that day, being Cajun makes me stand out. And I like it.

So we went to my family reunion last week. Probably the last one, as much as the aunties complained! It was a blast. It’s so good to see family and bond for the day. And now we have the added benefit of being able to keep up over Facebook.

This is my grandma. My Memon. She’s turning 90 this month and doesn’t look 80. She’s still full of spark and fun. I can’t get enough of her. She’s wearing a bonnet that’s been in our family for 130+ years. They did a skit. It involved whiskey and panties. I won’t get into it.

This is a photo of me with my brothers. They’re a lot older, so growing up I was like an only child. Now that we’re all grown, we appreciate each other a lot more. They’re fun to drink with.

This is my sister in law. I never get to hang out with her enough. We had a great time together. If she lived closer I know we’d hang out all the time. She loves Max likes nobody’s business.

My nephews. Now that they’re grown, they’re really cool adults! (Yes, I still weep and say “I remember when you couldn’t even stand up yet!) And my niece, who is becoming a teenager faster than I can handle.

And my entire family. Ha. Not hardly. But enough to remind me why we have family. They’re there to love you and support you, even if they haven’t seen you in ten years.