We love to eat.

Not really recipes, the following is more like a list of what we like to cook.  There are plenty of places to find recipes if you want to try your hand. Read the following list and by the time you finish, if you aren't looking for an inexpensive air fare to New Orleans you are either on a diet or one of the 200,000 displaced citizens who can't come home.

New Orleanians like their food well seasoned. Salt and four or five kinds of pepper (all hot) make the basic seafood seasoning. Zatarains shrimp boil is an essential ingredient. Cayenne pepper (the fine red powder) and Tabasco round out most recipes.

• Crayfish, crab, shrimp boiled, bisque or etouffe  (we have the smaller and better blue crabs here)
  
• Gumbo - seafood of course, sausage if you are out of seafood. Start with a roux.  Use okra.
  
• Grilled Redfish - scales and skin down then grill to perfection
  
• Speckled Trout Fish Fry - the local bag limit is 25 of these 14" long fish per person per day... that's enough
  
• PoBoy Sandwich - you need real French Bread (baguettes) then make them out of anything. Roast Beef is a local favorite. I like seafood, with fried oysters on top of the list. Dressed of course. The biggest problem is whether you can wait long enough to actually make the sandwich because you can just cut off slices of bread, slather on  butter and you have fast food.
  
• Jambalaya is good when you need to stretch the seafood
  
• Oysters on the halfshell, grilled, stewed, baked (Rockefeller, Bienville, Meuniere). Grilled in the hallfshell with butter, garlic and Parmesan cheese is an easy treat.
  
• Seafood Platter means fried catfish, shrimp, oysters, soft shell crab stuffed crab french fries and more.
  
• Shrimp - boiled, fried, remolaude, creole, BBQ (watch Forrest Gump for the complete list)
• Real Coffee - grind the beans, 1 to 1.5 tbsp per cup, use French Roast or better. New Orleans is the top coffee importer in the nation. You can fix it a million ways. Iced is great when the temperature is hot. Cafe au Lait adds warmed milk. I like it black and thick with a little sweetener in the morning.
  
• French Toast - Pain Perdue means "Lost Bread" in French because you use the stale bread left over from the day before. Use eggs, milk, a drop of vanilla extract and stale French Bread baguettes.
  
• Hush Puppies and Cornbread are more southern than New Orleans but we love them
  
• Mirlitons (mela-tans) - a local fibrous, green vegetable, prepared stuffed or in a casserole, often with eggplant. Known worldwide as the chayote.
  
• Dirty Rice, brown rice, white rice, fried rice and more rice
• Grits we are south of the Mason-Dixon Line also known as the Grit Line according to "My Cousin Vinny." Some local recipes include Fried Grits which sounds unlikely, but you should not miss it. Boiled then served with butter remains the popular favorite.
  
• Red Beans and Rice - the Monday favorite, sausage and Tabasco sauce make this a complete meal, serve with French bread and butter of course.
  
• Bread Pudding (Souffle is the Commander's Palace version) another delicious use of that stale French bread.
  
• Snow Balls (properly spelled SnoBall)- 165 flavors. Strawberry is my favorite but many locals swear by the chocolate. Shaved ice based on Ernest Hansen's 1934 patent makes this dish native to New Orleans. William's on Plum Street serves the larger sizes in the square Chinese food carry out containers. I had no idea those funny shaped boxes had any use other than snowballs until I was 20.
  
• The Roman Candy Man has been spotted around the city but his horse seems to be missing and a pickup truck is doing the duty.
  
• Pralines abound in the French Market
  
• Beignets, the little square doughnuts coated with powdered sugar are found at Cafe du Monde and Morning Call
• King Cakes are traditionally served during Carnival season. These large iced rings of dough can be stuffed with fillings or served plain. The current generation of cakes generally contain a small plastic "baby." The tradition calls for whoever receives the baby to provide the next cake.
  
• Cheese Fries (You've got to be kidding! Free if the Zephyrs score in the seventh inning)
• All the regular American, European, Asian, African, Australian cuisine prepared by some of the greatest chefs anywhere. One byproduct of the active tourist industry is great restaurants.
  
• MRE's were added to the local fare in late August 2005 by an unfortunate incident. The cheese spread is about all I can recommend.  The built in chemical heaters are fun. The boxes are hard to open but the directions are a hoot.

Oysters on the halfshell require a special sauce constructed from ketchup, horesradish, tabasco, and a squeeze of lemon. Dip the raw oyster in the sauce, eat whole. It won't kill the Vibrio parahaemolyticus bacteria that we are constantly warned against, but it will clear your sinuses.