A New York view of Cajun Country, just that headline has probably made many of you want to get a rope and find a tall tree. You just know this is going to be bad right? Some hot shot big city dweller is going to tell us all that is wrong with the way we live. Wrong. This is a very kind and I believe accurate description of our home, our culture and our food.

This article and video was featured in the New York Times on Friday. I don't know William Widmer who did the video or Bryan Miller who crafted the article but you know they have actually seen what they were writing about. Widmer is a photographer from New Orleans and Miller is a food critic for the New York Times. Far to often it seems writers from north of I-10 are afraid to come down and get their hands dirty and get to really know us. Then they write some unseasoned pablum of a piece that depicts us as backwards and hopelessly lost in time.

These two guys did not. They embraced who we are and why we are the way we are and I respect that. More importantly Mr. Widmer and Mr. Miller are both very passionate about their craft. Their talent with camera and lens, paper and pens shines through in the article entitled Dancing, Dining and Daiquiris in Cajun Country, that was published last Friday.

In Bryan's article you can tell he has fallen in love with certain aspects of the Cajun Culture.

I paid a visit to the Best Stop market, in Scott, which has been a family business for 27 years. Its refrigerated shelves hold various types of homemade Cajun sausages, smoked meats, prepared foods and all manner of edible curiosities like chaudin (stuffed pig’s stomach) and Cajun-style stuffed beef tongue.

It just goes to show you that some people, even New York people, get us and understand that our way of life is very important .  I found Bryan's article and William's video to be a great perspective on the place I call home. It opened my eyes to the incredible things I could be seeing and doing every day, every month and every weekend. Maybe we are too close to the forest to appreciate the trees.

If you had friends coming from out of state and you wanted them to leave with the same love of South Louisiana that you have, what would you tell them to see, to do, to eat? What time of year would you tell them to come? What places should they see and what things are absolute tourist traps?

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