Page 17 of Lulu’s Recipe for Cajun Sass

“Since you approve of me now, does that mean I can come see you some time?”

“You are persistent.”

“Nothing ventured, nothing gained.” He waggled his eyebrows at her. “How about tomorrow afternoon?”

“I need to go out in the swamps to gather some herbs. My supplies are low.”

“Swell,” he said and trailed a fingertip lightly over her forearm, from elbow to wrist. The gesture might have been playful, but the expression in his dark Cajun eyes was hungry and lustful. Serious business, that.

The fine hairs stood out all over Louise’s body, coming to erotic attention, and she had to wonder if she was making a big mistake, or marking an important turning point in her barren life. She had only this past week taken steps to get her Cajun Sass back, thanks to some tips in her mother’s family herb journal. Maybe this was taking a giant step further in that direction when what she needed was baby steps.

“I feel as if I’ve opened the chicken coop door to a starving dog.”

“I don’t know about starving. Well, yes, you could say that.” He smiled that devastating smile of his.

“You are way out of my league,” she said before she had a chance to bite her tongue.

“If you don’t want to run with the big dogs, darlin’, you can always stay hidden under the porch.”

That was a challenge if she ever heard one.

She lifted her chin and said, “Bow wow!” Then she winked at him. Where she got the nerve, she had no idea. Must be some hidden reservoir of Cajun Sass.

To her immense satisfaction, he visibly gulped.

* * *

When Cajun Sass meets Cajun Brass…

Louise woke the next morning to what looked to be a beautiful day, not too hot, not too humid.

After a quick visit to the bathroom and whispered morning prayers, including a hello to St. Jude, she padded out to the kitchen where she turned on the coffeepot. She also flicked the knob on the small radio on the counter, already set to the Cajun station which played traditional French bayou music and the more raucous zydeco accented by the occasional “E ha ha!” The music was mixed in with local news and weather reports. She’d been right. The temperature was expected to be a balmy eighty this afternoon.

Much attention was being given that day to the musician Harry Choates who’d died suddenly at the age of only twenty-eight. Poor boy! His song “Jole Blon” was hugely successful, and the radio commentators were predicting that he would be known later as the godfather of Cajun music.

She took a couple sips of coffee. Then, since it was Monday, she went to the little room off her bathroom and started the weekly laundry, a tradition in Cajun country, though a much bigger deal in the old days when the families were large and the loads numerous. Even with just her and Adèle, there was plenty of dirty clothing. Probably because Louise was a little bit fussy about keeping her child clean and well-dressed and above reproach, the worry of many single mothers, who always felt they were under the gossipy eye of neighbors. Not that anyone knew she was a mother, but still…

While her first load was running, she went back to the kitchen and started a pot of red beans. She sautéed the Cajun Holy Trinity…onions, bell peppers, and celery…in some leftover bacon fat from the jar she kept in the ice box, followed by thin slices of andouille sausage. To that, she added the dry beans she’d been soaking overnight and covered the batch with water, bringing it to a boil, then lowered it to a soft simmer. It would cook the entire day and be served with rice and corn bread. Tabasco sauce would give the dish some spice.

Monday red beans and rice—another Cajun tradition from the past when women would work laundering, hanging clothes out to dry, then folding and sometimes sprinkling water on some items for ironing the next day. There had been no time for any special cooking on Mondays. Thus, the red beans and rice, which required no work.

It was funny, Louise mused, how she had come to embrace all the old Cajun ways. There had been a time just after high school graduation that she couldn’t wait to get away from the bayou and all its old-fashioned ways. She’d headed to the big city of New Orleans where she’d been happy working as a typist at the Higgins factory, makers of the famous Liberty Ships. And, yes, she’d been a bit wild, living the principle of joie de vivre to the fullest, a frequent visitor to the city’s USO, dancing and flirting with the soldiers.

And then she’d met Phillipe.

She sighed. Everything came back to Phillipe and that time in her life.

Her new wall phone rang, and she rushed to answer it before the noise awakened Adèle. It was Marie Gaudet.

“Sorry to call so early, but I reckon you’re out and about by the time the rooster crows. I wanted to catch you before you went out.”

“How is Anna Belle today?” Louise asked as she gave the beans a quick stir with a wooden spoon, the phone cradled at her neck.

“Wonderful! The little imp. I do declare, you’d never know she scared us to death yesterday.”

“Young’uns have a knack for springing back.”

“I was wonderin’ if you could send Adèle over fer a play date with Anna Belle t’day. It would be jist the thing to make everything appear normal again. I doan wanna treat Anna Belle lak an invalid.”