Real Cajun: Rustic Home Cooking from Donald Link’s Louisiana

Get Real Cajun Here! This book hooked me from the moment it arrived, it’s like Donald Link peeled back all the hype around Cajun food and took me straight to Grandma’s kitchen. The recipes in Real Cajun are rustic, real, and surprisingly simple, full of dishes like smothered pork roast over rice, fried catfish done in bacon fat, and chicken & dumplings that finish off in a hot oven so the dumplings puff golden. It’s not just a cookbook—it’s part memoir, part love letter to Louisiana, and every photo (by Chris Granger) makes me want to cook something hearty right now. Every recipe I’ve tried from this book turns out better than I expect; it’s the kind of cookbook that gets messy in the kitchen with butter-spattered pages and sauce drips—that’s how you know it’s good. Be sure and check out my Creole & Cajun Recipe Page as well as my Bibliography of Creole & Cajun Cookbooks!

Cochon Butcher at Nola Cuisine

This visit to Cochon Butcher (next door to Cochon on Tchoupitoulas) reads like a love letter to in-house charcuterie: deep-smoked, beef-casing andouille; salamis, mortadella, rillettes, terrines, pickles, and Creole mustard—all made on site.

You get a behind-the-scenes peek at upstairs curing rooms (duck pastrami in progress), a shout-out to the then-new Calcasieu events space, and a memorable taste of the shop’s “bacon praline” studded with house Kurobuta bacon.

For lunch, the muffuletta—with finely chopped olive salad, perfect bread, and house meats—earns raves for flavor and value, and a lagniappe tartiflette with Reblochon seals the deal. It’s enthusiastic, photo-rich, and celebratory of Link/Stryjewski’s pork palace.

Be sure and check out my Creole & Cajun Recipe Page as well as my Bibliography of Creole & Cajun Cookbooks!