Throw-Back Thursday with the Queen #tbt

Ellen, Queen Ida, Ms. Patti @ Verbum Dei High School, Watts, 1991

I ran into my co-worker, Chuck Taggart, in the hallway at work the other day.  Chuck said that he'd been cleaning his office and came upon a few items that I'd lent him. Chuck pulled out my "Cookin' With Queen Ida" cookbook and a CD called "Hanukkah Swings!" with Kenny Ellis.  I'm thinkin' that I loaned Chuck the Hanukkah CD when he was searching for songs for his former radio show.  I'm not exactly sure why I would have loaned him my Queen Ida cookbook.  Chuck is a master of Creole and New Orleans-style cooking. He could write his own cookbook!

Bonus: There were two photographs in my cookbook. One from 1991, soon after I acquired the book, of me, Queen Ida and Ms. Patti at a Zydeco dance at Verbum Dei High School in Watts (above).  I see that I'm holding the cookbook in the photo. Queen Ida autographed it for me.

The second photo was 7 years and many pounds later on the Santa Monica Pier. Queen Ida was performing for the Santa Monica Pier Twilight Dance Series. Ida and her band always sound great and never fail to get folks dancing. She's a treasure.

Ellen, Queen Ida, Santa Monica Pier, August 1998

I just love a cookbook with a spiral spine. It's so much easier to read the recipes while cooking. I was happy to get my cookbook back. I looked for it a few weeks ago and figured it must be buried in a box in the far reaches of our garage. I can tell by the clipped and dog-eared page that the most-used recipe in Queen Ida's book is her Bread Pudding. It's one of the BEST dessert recipes I've ever found. This dish is sure to please at parties. I pair it with a nice, warm whiskey sauce.

I'm going to look through "Cookin' With Queen Ida" this weekend and fix us a few Bon Temps Creole recipes for Sunday dinner.