The Call of the Turtle

We stopped in Jennings to visit Louisiana's only museum depicting the history of the telephone. Our decision to visit the Louisiana Telephone Pioneer Museum was probably related to our action in May, 2008. That was when we abandoned our rotary telephones in favor of two new cell phones. With the purchase of a laptop computer that same day, the pull into the twenty-first century left our heads spinning.

Although we recognized some of the phones in the museum as being similar to the recent "occupants" of our end tables, we did not have first-hand experience with these "candlestick" phones.

One of the oldest phones in the Museum was the "Ring to Talk" Box (lower left corner of the photo), which would have been found in a few homes in the early 1800's.

The challenge of handling calls at a central location must have been a daunting task during times of heavy use, but the caller always had contact with a real person rather than a recording telling him or her: "Thank you for holding. You're call is important to us . . . ."

This display caught our attention and brought back some memories of life in the '50's. The sign read: "Several of us in the Operator Services Department wore these dresses one day in the 1950's as a 'Yellow Pages Promotion'. I only hoped that it didn't rain as the dresses were made of paper."
--Gerry Apple

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When last we ate at Chef Roy’s Frog City Café (see post on October 26, 2008), we left feeling too full to have dessert. I (Kate) was determined that, on a return visit, I wouldn’t make the same mistake again. Besides, the “Turtle” was calling my name. Our intention was to order luncheon entrees rather than repeat the appetizer mélange of our previous visit. The Crawfish Napoleon looked tempting as did the Chicken Fried Chicken with white gravy and numerous other menu items.

So what did we do – yes, we, with one exception, did a repeat on our earlier lunch. Rather than an order of Popcorn Crawfish and an order of Catfish Bites, we opted for two orders of the crawfish. The Cajun Eggrolls were as good if not better as I remembered and the onion rings exceptional. The waitress tried to remove the empty onion ring plate, and Chuck stopped her because he wanted to eat all of the little batter crumbs left on the plate.

To leave room for dessert, I decided to take some of my crawfish home for a midnight snack. When the “Turtle” – which we shared – hit the table, I realized I had chosen wisely. Do you remember ice cream cake roll? Chocolate cake and vanilla ice cream served jelly roll fashion? The Turtle is – as Emeril Lagasse would say – ice cream cake roll “Kicked up notches unknown to mankind.” Chocolate geniose cake (a sponge cake from Genoa, Italy) surrounds vanilla ice cream. This is rolled in caramel and roasted pecans, topped with whipped cream, and drizzled with chocolate. And all of this is served in a pool of caramel and chocolate.

I think we broke the World Record for speed of dessert eating, and when all of the cake was gone, I asked Chuck if it would be bad form to lick the remaining caramel and chocolate from the plate. He laughed and said he was thinking about wiping the plate with his finger. A five-Addie dessert from a five-Addie restaurant.

We arrived at 12:35 and had a 10-minute wait for a table. The room grew quiet over the next half hour, but we didn't realize the change occurring. The once-packed dining room was empty. It was 1:10. Evidently, the folks here take the lunch hour literally.

Whether it was a business lunch, a group celebrating a birthday, or a three-generation family lunch, lunch hour means noon to one--for everyone.

A Moss Lesson in a Bateau

It was a beautiful day for a ride down a portion of the Vermilion River in a bateau, a shallow-draft, flat-bottomed boat which was used extensively across North America, especially in the colonial period and in the fur trade. The trip began at Vermilion Village, a restored Cajun-Creole Village located adjacent to the Lafayette Airport.

Our guides, Gregory, at the helm, and Dale, in the dark glasses, answered questions from a native of Lafayette, a visitor from Scotland and her brother from British Columbia, and Kate.

I assumed the responsibility of being on the lookout for alligators.

The bataeu was a boat that originally was pointed on both ends. At one time, mules walking along the shoreline pulled the boats by ropes. Another means of moving the boat was to have one person on each side using poles to push the boat. When motors became available, one end was "flattened" to accommodate the motor.

The river, like most others in the Southeast, was low--such that, at one point, the boat hit a submerged log with no effect other than a loud thump.

A relatively young cypress tree (left) was one of the few cypress trees that we saw.

Dale is an artist, among other skills, and thought that this cabin could be renovated and used as a studio. His artistry is displayed on the CD cover of a grammy-nominated band. I missed the name of the band (I was watching for alligators, remember?).

I wanted to show the Spanish moss that grows in humid climates usually on trees, especially Live Oak and cypress. It is not a parasite; it is an epiphytic herb which grows on another plant, upon which it depends for mechanical support, but not for nutrients. As an air plant, it depends upon nutrients that are carried by the wind and rain.

Dale pointed out the Spanish Moss's slender, threadlike leaves that are connected to tiny strands of black, hair-like fibers that form the core of this plant. He then rolled a clump of moss back and forth until it resulted in a long strand of moss. Native Americans would braid these strands to form a type of rope.

I wanted to include this photo because it is the only time we have seen a tree with its leaves turning color. We traveled south just ahead of the "leaf peeping" season in each area, so we have, in effect, missed the beauty of Fall this year.

Our journey to the past was interrupted by this reminder of the present.

Junior Martin: Maker of Diatonic Melodeons

Set back from the street in Scott, LA, was the workshop for Martin's Accordions. We parked in the Waffle House parking lot next door and made our way to the entrance of the shop. Clarence Martin, a jovial fellow in his late 60's, greeted us with a smile and "Hello, I'm Junior. C'mon in. Let me show you around the shop."

The shop itself was a workshop, a salesroom, and a performance stage. The room has been expanded at least three times to accommodate the number of people on a tour. We had learned about Martin Accordions from Elderhhostel participants we met on a tour of a rice plantation. About 40 of them had been here last week for a tour and a brief performance by Junior, his son, and daughter.

When I called Junior to ask about attending a tour, he apologized that no tour was scheuled in the near future. However, he said he would be happy to schedule "a visit" to talk about his work, although he would not be able to do any playing. Even though Junior makes fine accordions, he does not play one. "I only know four songs. That's my instrument over there," he said, pointing to a steel guitar.

As he talked about building his first accordion, he said he was told, "Don't build just one from start to finish. Work on one component at a time and produce many of each part."

Junior followed this advice--too well. When he began building the accordions from all the pieces he had in separate compartments, he had 54 accordions when he finished. "I had no idea what to do with 54 accordions, so I had to figure out some way to sell them." So began his business.

As we began the walk around the shop, Junior showed us accordions in various stages of contruction.

"I get the reeds from Italy. The best reeds come from Italy." These reeds (left) were being stored in the box of the accordion while awaiting assembly.

"The Cajun accordion is actually a 'diatonic melodeon'," Junior explained, "because each key has two notes, one sounded when the bellows are pulled out and a second note when the bellows are pushed in."

This is the arrangement (right) of the reeds in the box of the accordion.

Structurally the instrument is small (6" x 11" when closed) and light weight (8 lbs.). The size, however, is no indication of its sound power. The finest Cajun accordions have 46 reeds (four reeds per melody button and three reeds per bass button) which supply them with much more volume power than a 28 pound piano key accordion.

We mentioned having heard Junior Melancon (see our Nov. 1 blog), but before we could say anything about how much we enjoyed his playing, Junior grabbed his head and said, "He has my accordions, but oh, he's so rough on them; he's always in wanting me to repair something."

The secret to the brilliant blue and red accordions in the above two photos is . . . food coloring. A lacquered food coloring.

The finished Martin Accordion (right) shows the Martin trademark on the bellows--the crawfish.

Junior has nearly 100 instruments in varying stages of completion around the shop (it takes about 10 months to fill an order). He sells 25% of his accordions to out-of-state buyers, and surprisingly (to us), he sells another 25% of his accordions internationally (Wales, Denmark, Norway, England, France are the biggest buyers).

On the shelves along one side of the shop are a collection of accordions, each with a unique story. Junior took a moment to tell some of the stories. One was a gift from a friend who found it in a pawn shop in England and bought it for four dollars.

The accordion on the left in the photo (left) was dropped off at his door with a note saying, "I'm not sure what I want you to do. I'll give you a call in the morning."

Junior has been waiting several years for that follow-up call.

A Mufuletta--and Zap(p's)

Coming from Philadelphia, the home of two of the world’s great sandwiches – the hoagie and the Philly Cheesesteak--Chuck and I are always looking for distinctive local sandwiches. While we have eaten and enjoyed many a Po’ Boy, we are also fond of a New Orleans Italian-American creation – the Mufuletta.

Salvatore Lupo, an immigrant from Sicily, is credited with developing the Mufuletta at his store, Central Grocery, in New Orleans. When visiting the Crescent City, we have had these sandwiches at Central Grocery, Progress Grocery, Napoleon House, and Liuzza’s. The latter two restaurants serve these sandwiches warm. Liuzza’s calls it a “Frenchuletta,” and it comes on a long rather than round loaf.

I took to the internet looking for the best Mufuletta in Lafayette, LA and found an extensive article from The Independent Weekly which outlined in some detail their survey of the “best” Mufulettas. Highly recommended was the sandwich from Cedar Deli, so off we went to this small grocery and deli that specializes in foods from the Mediterranean. We ordered a whole "mufalata" (as Cedar spells it) “to go” and ate three quarters for lunch and split the remaining quarter for supper.

A Mufuletta comes on a roughly ten inch round loaf of bread split horizontally and filled with salami, ham capicola, mortadella, mild provolone cheese and the taste secret – olive salad. Chopped pimento stuffed green olives and black olives (preferably calamatas) are mixed with chopped celery, cauliflower, and carrots and mixed with olive oil and seasonings.

Cedar’s sandwich proved to be a fine example of the art of the Mufuletta and especially noteworthy was the olive salad. Spread directly on the cut surface of the bottom half of the loaf, the olive oil had just soaked into the bread, infusing this with the flavor of the oil, olives, and seasonings, by the time we got home. I am glad that I bought a large jar of their salad for sandwiches down the road.

The Mufuletta was eaten with Zapp’s chips – the finest potato chip ever made. These thick and crunchy chips are made in Gramercy, LA and come in a variety of flavors. My favorite is the Spicy Cajun Crawtators – chips seasoned with crawfish boil style seasoning. We discovered these on an earlier trip to Louisiana and have been known to have a case shipped to Wycombe when I crave a taste of Louisiana.

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One of the crops we have seen in many of the fields south and west of Lafayette is sugar cane. These stalks grow as high as 8 to 12 feet. When ripe, the canes are cut down close to the ground and stripped of the leaves, which are left to shelter the roots through the winter. This trash is then burned or plowed under. The lowest part of the cane is richest in sugar.

When sugarcane is harvested (right), it is stripped of its leaves and sent to the sugar factory. At the factory, the stems are crushed and shredded by rollers in a process called grinding. During grinding, hot water is sprayed over the shredded material to extract the remaining sugar. The solid waste that is left after extraction of the sugar is known as pulp or sugarcane bagasse, which is dried and used as a fuel.

A quick sugar primer: Cane syrup, molasses and brown sugar all start with the juice squeezed from sugar cane stalks. To make sugar, the juice is spun in a centrifuge; pale amber crystals rise to the top, becoming sugar; the brown solids sink to the bottom, becoming molasses.

These "cans" contain 16,682 gallons of pure cane syrup.

Small Encounters on the Lake

Prior to the 20th century, the Atchafalaya Basin was a vast swamp enclosed by the natural levees of Bayou Teche and the Mississippi River. Today, Lake Fausse Pointe State Park, occupies a 6000-acre site which was once part of the Basin. After a drive to the park's entrance, about 12 miles south of Henderson, we began exploring the park and meeting its residents.

Brochures describe the Park as being " ... at the edge of a beautiful water wilderness." There are 50 sites for camping in tents or trailers, and several cabins line sections of the shoreline.


As we approached the bridge to the area of the Park's trails, we were greeted by the majestic blue heron. For the longest period, the heron was motionless, waiting for food to pass by or silently aiding photographers.

At the base of a tree, along the shore, sat another resident of the water waiting for lunch to arrive. We had to look very closely to see this fellow, this young alligator.

One of the surprises along the trails was this armadillo--one of many we saw and tried to photograph. They are constantly moving, nose to the ground, pushing past leaves and twigs in search of food. Whether searching in groups or alone, they were clearly focused on their task, rarely stopping and never looking up.

This egret seemed to be observing all the happenings on the lake.

Some of those happenings involved those in canoes and kayaks;

others involved fishermen, living at a much faster pace than the other inhabitants of the lake.

We opted for the pace of the majority of the residents of Lake Fausse Pointe State Park.

Four of a Kind

Some stops in small towns are scheduled; others are brief visits on the way to another destination. As such, there may be only a few highlights to catch. Presented here today is a brief visit to four such towns.

Immaculate Conception Catholic Church, Washington, built in 1851.

St. Mary Magdelen Catholic Church in Abbeville.

Courthouse in Clinton. As the marker says, "This is one of the oldest courthouses in Louisiana which is still in daily use." There was no one around during our visit, because the courthouse is being renovated.

Right behind Clinton's courthouse is an area once called Lawyer Row because lawyers occupied the offices. Today, in addition to attorneys' offices, a variety of retail stores now complete the row.

Established in 1821, the Academy of the Sacred Heart, in Grand Coteau, is the second oldest institution of learning west of the Mississippi. The Academy offers an education for girls, grade pre-kindergarten-12th.

This house has no hallway–-just two front doors leading into the house. The stairway on the front porch leads up to the garçonniere, the second floor where the boys slept. Since living space was limited, having the stairs on the outside of the house, meant more room inside.

Part of living is finding the unique, interesting places all around us.

Crops with Legs

I was only a lukewarm proponent of rice with a meal--fried rice, red beans and rice, and refried beans and rice were the only ways that white grain made it to my plate. Then we discovered Ellis Stancel's rice grown in Gueydan, LA. Oh, my; oh, my. Just the aroma was enough to make me question my loyalty to the potato. And the taste was a nutty kind of sensation--there was a flavor to the rice!

As we drove through the area south of Crowley and north of Gueydan, we saw acres of land devoted to growing rice. We were able to join an Elderhostel group as they were touring the Wright farm south of Crowley. Jeb Wright, representing the fourth generation of Wrights to run "The Farm," presented a time line of the work on the Crystal Rice Heritage Farm.

Some fields are rectangular with levees around the perimeter of each of the large rectangles; some have levees in a curving pattern surrounding an area. Water from deep wells on the farm or from nearby rivers is used to flood the fields.

In January, an operation called "water leveling" is conducted whereby a machine passes over the fields and the fields are leveled and slanted (to allow for filling and draining the levee-enclosed spaces) by a computer-driven blade pushed by a tractor when the field is under a small amount of standing water. Water-soaked rice can then be planted by airplane.

In July-August, the rice fields are drained and the rice is harvested with the same equipment as is used to harvest wheat. The rice fields can then be flooded and planted with rice, and a second crop of rice is harvested in October.

In the second year a crop rotation program can be instituted. For example, crawfish, as a second "crop," can be "seeded" in April to feed on stubble and acquatic plants.

In October-November, the crawfish are harvested by setting traps (right) in the fields. The traps sit on the soil base about 18 inches below the water's surface.

(Some "harvesting" is done by egrets, much to the displeasure of the crawfish farmers.)

In what is now a one-person operation, the traps are checked, emptied into the boat, and replaced in the field.

Other options in the decision to rotate crops are to plant soybeans in alternate years of planting rice or to let the land lie fallow for that period of time.

Some farms control the entire operation of growing and drying the rice,

while other growers will send the rice to large companies in Crowley to be dried and sold.

Like all farmers, rice growers are at the mercy of Mother Nature. With the recent hurricanes, some land has been covered with salt water, and until a drenching rain comes along to remove the salt, the fields will sit.

Waiting.