Ashton Daigle

Well kids, I’m not sure exactly how this came about. I don’t, as a rule, partake in these sorta things. Be that as it may, my Plurk buddy Rupe has a blog. He interviewed somebody; I think; and then was supposed to “tag” six people or something. You see how well I follow directions? At the end of it all I found myself saying “Okay Rupe, sure. Interview me.”

Disclaimer: I’m not responsible for any damages these questions or answers may have on adults, children, or small pets. Here goes nuthin….

1) Two-Part Question, Right Off The Bat: Your culinary and bartending skills are without question. (Well … some of us have questions, but we have a limited amount of time, y’know. And there’s that ADD thing we can’t shake, too.) So …. Your grandest creation? And the one The Divine Ms. A would rather you put in “the history files”?

As if Rupe really had to threaten me with public humiliation; I’m not new here and either is he. Doesn’t he know by now that I’m verbose and practically unable, biologically, to give one or two word mono-syllable answers?

Oh well. Maybe not. My heritage is half German (mom’s side) and half French on my father’s side; Cajun French if you ask him; with lots of family in the swamp, and in Nova Scotia; he’s into heritage; a regular white man’s version of Alex Hailey.

But I digress. The thing to remember here is that my father’s mother was Polish; actually another puzzling factor considering that foods prepared by her in her house (I never knew my dad’s dad; he died before I was born) tended to be on the bland side. Chicken gravy and rice; roast, gravy and rice. The thing I always remember on her table, because I despised it, was beet salad.

I guess what I’m trying to say in my own round-about way; is that region (southern Louisiana, right near New Orleans) has had more of an impact on my cooking than family tradition has. This also isn’t to say no one in my family cooked N’awlins; because they did. My mom’s parents made gumbos; her dad had a boiler and boiler room where he boiled his own sacks of live crabs and crawfish.

What I’m saying, though, is that it was the region that impacted their style of cooking; and that they themselves didn’t have a lot of their own family traditions and recipes. They really didn’t have any family recipes, barring one exception, noodles and prunes on Good Friday…

Why is this important? I’m not totally sure that it is; except to say that the recipes in my arsenal are not a result of “family tradition and influence” but rather, are influenced by the region.

But back to the question; my grandest creation. See. We’re going to have a problem here. Because although I’m exploratory; and I’m willing to throw cumin, raspberry, allspice and mint together - just to see what happens; I don’t really consider any dish I make “my creation” because; as with gumbos, beans and rice, soups or what have you; most of the things I cook, I read or saw somewhere.

Now; with that said, there is such a thing as “flavor” and by flavor, I don’t mean the way something tastes; but rather an addition, a twist; something that I do as THE COOK; that makes an old traditional dish my own.

Also; to make this missive even more “Ashton Deficit Disordered” (trust me, there is a method to my madness) I’m going to add the following statement to the mix: I never make the same dish twice. Just as no two snowflakes are alike; no two meals of mine are ever going to be slightly the same.

Anyway - one of my “grand creations” is actually a marinade-slash-barbecue sauce.

At some point, probably around 10-12 years ago I became obsessed with the idea of cooking with fruit. I don’t know why, exactly. I’d been researching peppers and having my interests tweaked by Caribbean cuisine.

(which along with straight African cuisine form some of the skeletal backbone of Creole cooking…..Subsequently, further research found the term “Creole” cooking to be an amorphous thing that pretentious asswipes and Johnson Wales graduates like to throw around…..If you ignore the chefs and ask any good Creole “cook” what Creole cooking means; they’ll give one honest assessment - all it means is cooking with tomatoes. Yup, imagine that.)

Anyway; here is my grand creation:

One ripe mango, peeled, pitted and squashed up good into a bowl; One tbsp. of minced granulated garlic; one dash of teriyaki sauce; one stick of butter completely melted; a dash of lime juice; one habanero pepper chopped finely (Warning - Unless you want fire in the hole for days following; only use one pepper); about half a Red Stripe beer

Place all these items into a bowl and mix good. It should form a semi-thick quasi-liquid. Use for shrimp or chicken. Place shrimp or chicken into mixture and let marinade about an hour. Then place shrimp or chicken on grill, and use brush to brush on the remainders as a barbecue sauce…..

Now; I’m not sure there are any recipes Mrs. D would have me put in the history file. However, I have screwed up a few dinners. For instance, early this fall there was the time I over-charred steaks on the grill. Although Mrs. D. likes her steaks well done, that time I went a little overboard. There was also the Christmas Eve dinner that almost wasn’t. This involves chicken with wild rice and sauce. It was the sauce I screwed up, because I didn’t follow the proper sour cream to chicken broth ratio. As a result, I ended up frantically scouring the streets of suburbia for one open store that sold sour cream. I did luck out. Walgreens had sour cream; who’d have thunk it….

2) Something ain’t right. Each time you see or hear it, it just ain’t right. And nothing’s gonna make it right. What is it? (Feel free to provide examples, photos, eyewitness accounts, ad naseum)

Well, as a constant rallier against all things unjust, impure, ugly, stupid, intellectually devoid…or just plain old wrong…I fight a constant and uphill battle daily. Ya see; Rupe knew this would wind me up.

Wrong? Wrong you ask? How bout Cialis commercials, or anything with the term “E.D.” in them aired during dinner time? Wrong? What about the woman the other day who decided her stop sign was “optional” and then had the nerve to flip me off when I pointed at her stop sign?

Wrong? How bout partisanship of any kind. I still can’t believe that after all this friggin nation’s been through; that grown up (and I use this term loosely), intelligent (used even looser) taxpaying citizens still actually pick and choose teams (Rep or Dem) and then actually defend them; bitterly in some cases to the point of public embarrassment.

Bottom line; it’s herd mentality and it’s wrong; and its chief instigator are “news channels”; the very fucking people who (remember this old dusty word) are supposed to maintain journalistic objectivity. Hey if their advertisers are Baptist or Catholic and say we’re gonna pull our shit cuz we don’t like the way you’ve been reporting this; guess what? The news channels will cow tow every time.

If you can’t think for yourself; you should be led into the processing center with the rest of the cattle and be packaged accordingly.

Wrong? Road signs addressed to blind people. Wrong? FEMA. Wrong? Garden gnomes. Wrong? The new and improved twisty plastic things used to secure items in children’s toy packages. Along the same lines, wrong? The plastic “soldered” for lack of better word, packages used in packaging things like Walkmans. Really people? Are these products so rare, so valuable, so high dollar to produce that they have to be hermetically fucking sealed before hitting the rack at Best Buy???? Wrong, wrong, wrong I tell you.

Oh and psychotherapy? Wrong. Scientology? Look at Tom Cruise.

Oh and then there’s the anti-hater crowd. You know these people; they don t-shirts with cutesy lil phrases like “mean people suck”; they walk around with the audacity to tell others not to be haters.

Since when is it so wrong to just hate? Why should I be made to feel bad or guilty by others for hating? I understand that hating someone over color, religion, cultural background or sexual preference is wrong (see above - Herd Mentality). But to walk around, day in and day out, wrapped in the ecstatic bliss of contentedness; what’s up with that?

I’m not necessarily an advocate of all-consuming, soul-shattering hatred. But seriously people, what’s wrong with a little garden variety, petty hatred amongst friends? And perhaps, just perhaps the anti-hate crowd are hypocrites as well. After all, if ya hate haters, isn’t that considered hate?

Rupe did this to me on purpose; for absolute certain now, I know. I’m gonna make Rupe pay my therapy bill…..Make it stop…make it go away….aagghhhhh…..

3) Two-Parter, Part II: (most) Everyone has in-laws and outlaws. Of your kin, who’d win in a knock-down dragout? Of that contigent, who’d walk away with the prize for “Most Notorious”?

Knock-down drag out?? Mrs Daigle, by all means.

I’ve got some winners in my family too. My dad; who likes to have all three of his wives at social events together; My mom; toxic, negative, shit-spewing overall just mean person; co-dependent obsessive-compulsive sister and her alcoholic mulatto boyfriend Floyd. There’s also my 20-sumthin niece and her uni-browed, control-freak husband.

And that’s just on my side. I will reserve comment for Mrs. D’s side of the family. That one might be best left for her to answer. Truth be told, Mrs. D has never fully unleashed her full-throttle, knock-down power on my family; even though they’ve fully deserved it on more than one occasion.

Admittedly, the idea of seeing my mom versus Andrea in a steel cage match does hold a certain strange appeal.

Most notorious family member? It’s a tossup between me, Floyd and my cousin Jaime; whose claim to fame was getting drunk at my son’s first birthday party and passing out naked in our tub. Fun times….

4) Speaking of Tuesday nights - since you mentioned it - a number of your stalkers are confused by this CCD thing. What in the world does “Carne Con Daigle” mean, anywho … ?!? Please elaborate …

Tuesday night CCD. To be honest, I don’t even know what CCD actually stands for. It’s probably something along the lines of Catholic Catechism; or maybe Catechism of the Catholic Diocese. I’m just not sure. But, in a nutshell, it’s religion classes which are prepping my young son for his first Communion this spring.

Our CCD classes run for about an hour; not long enough for a long adult date night; but just long enough for us to grab a bite at this little hole in the wall we like called Coffee’s Boilin’ Pot.

5) Cake or Pie

I see Rupe saved the toughest for last. Cake. No, pie. No, cake. Pie. Cake. Pie. Argghh, speaking of things that just ain’t right; making me have to decide to pick between cake or pie; that’s almost fucking criminal. But Rupe knows this so I will indulge him.

They each have their pros and cons. Cake is moist and has frosting. It’s a fun, delicious treat. It can be served as a desert; or as a meal in itself. But pies are good too. By the way, quick joke; speaking of pies.

Little Johnny was in math class one day. His teacher had him come up to the board to work on some equations. The teacher told Johnny, “I want you to write out the equation Pi r squared” Johnny looked at his teacher for a moment with a slight look of puzzled bemusement on his face. His teacher said, “Johnny what’s wrong. Write that equation.” Johnny says, “But it’s wrong.” The teacher looked at Johnny, exasperated and said, “No it isn’t. It’s a basic math equation. Pi r squared.” Johnny just looked at him and said, “No way. Pies are round, cornbread’s square.”

Anyway, pies are juicy and filled with fun fruits. Cake a la pie, with mode?? This is a tough call; because I do love them both so dearly. The only true drawback with cake is that it is a utensil food. You really need a fork or a spoon to eat cake because of the crumb factor.

On more than one occasion, Mrs D. has woken up following one of my 3 a.m. feeding times, only to discover my cake crumb trail.

Now, on the flip side, with pies, I don’t eat the crust. And by crust, I only mean the little strip of crusts that outlines the round top of the pie tin. Crust which lies above and below the filling I eat.

Now while we’re on the subject of pies, I do have to put a shout out to a local N’awlins institution - Hubig’s Pies (http://www.hubigspies.com).

These are basically along the same line as the hand-held Hostess fruit pies; only better. They have a lighter, more palatable crust and Hubig’s offers a helluva lot more flavors, including banana cream, chocolate, pineapple and coconut.

Okay, I think I’ve convinced myself and I’m ready to announce a winner.

Pie.