hot child in the city

Believe me when I tell you that a couple of weeks ago, when I was dead-set on filling out a nice, long post with photos of the Creole Tomato/Louisiana Seafood/Cajun-Zydeco festival throwdown, I had no idea that it would be so hot down in the French Quarter.

It was too hot to take photos. Seriously, the camera kept slipping out of my hands.

I managed a few, though:

I love these little guys. I ate them.

Cajun fish taco. I asked for a small portion of slaw so I could really taste the fish. It's a lightly fried tilapia filet, dusted with just a bit of Cajun seasoning (like a mixture of cayenne, garlic powder, thyme, salt, pepper). Really nice and simple-tasting, a good thing to eat in the heat.

Shrimp-and-crab-stuffed Creole tomato. This was the perfect dish to "marry" the two food festivals together. Creole tomatoes are the jewels of the summer season here in Louisiana--people talk about them all year, either how much they miss them or how much they love them. They don't really look different from regular tomatoes, to me, but the taste is something special. Denser, sunnier, redder. I devoured every last seed of this tomato.

We had some other yummies--crawfish sausage, hurricane sno balls--but they didn't make it to the photo stage. If you can stand the heat, this festival trio, known as the "Vieux To Do," is really something. Tons of food, great vendors, fun music. This year it was held the weekend of June 13-14, so I'd assume next year it will be sometime close to that.