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And now, for some New Orleans food.  Years ago, I spent several months wandering around the French Quarter at night.  I learned a lot about New Orleans food.  Ostensibly, I was there for law school.

I’ve been craving this particular salad for days, so without further ado, I give you a shrimp salad po’boy.

Ingredients:

three large stalks of celery

2 cups of “salad” pre-cooked shrimp.  (“Yes, I know cheap farmed shrimp are terrible for the environment.”  They’re still not as bad as cows.)

3 eggs

1/2 cup of mayonnaise

2 tablespoons of store brand sweet pickle relish.  (Most vinegar is so finely refined that it’s gluten free.  Go nuts.)

hot sauce to taste

1 tablespoon ketchup

1/2 teaspoon Worcestershire

1/4 teaspoon gumbo file

1/2 tsp pepper

iceberg lettuce

Kitchen apparati:

1 saucepan

water to cover boiled eggs

spoon

mixing bowl large enough to hold all the ingredients

stove

kitchen timer

paring knife

mixing spoon or spatula

Directions:

Take a frozen gluten free baguette from the freezer.  (See recipe below.)  Get the bag of shrimp out and put it under cold running water in the sink.  Put a couple of eggs in a pan of water on the stove, turn the heat to medium, and leave the eggs for about ten minutes past the time the water boils–it will take about twenty-five minutes.  Meanwhile, finely slice the celery, add all of the spices, mayonnaise, relish, and file into the mixing bowl, and add the somewhat-defrosted shrimp. Mix well.   Rip off 1/3 of a head of iceberg lettuce and finely shred it onto a plate.  When it’s all mixed the eggs should be cooked.  Take them off the heat and put them in cold water immediately.   Let them cool for about ten minutes.  Go do something like help a kid with their math homework.  Once the eggs are cool, peel them, and slice three of the eggs into small pieces in the salad.  Mix again.

Cut your now-defrosted baguette in half, leaving one side as a hinge.  Arrange the lettuce on the lower half of the bread.  Add the salad to the lettuce bed. 

If it doesn’t burn the back of your throat a little, add more hot sauce.

Cost:  About $1.00 a serving for the salad;  about $3.00 for the whole sandwich.

Serve with cold espresso and almond milk lattes.

Soundtrack:  Siouxsie and the Banshees, as a channel on Pandora;  you won’t believe what it pulls down.