Prairie Noel

Olivier Christmas

Seafoam Prairie des Femmes Mary

La Beauté avec un Coup de Main

Beauty with a helping hand.

Maris Stella of the Pixel

Mayor Vidrine Hotel de Ville Noel

There are 54 Christmas trees in Ville Platte's city hall. via Mayor Vidrine: "It's purty purty and all the big and little sha babies" need to come see and take pictures. Go see L'Hotel de Ville de La Ville Platte!

Bay Berry Wax 2

Going to get bay berries

bay berries from the wax myrtle

making bay wax

Click here for an old puck of bayberry wax with a red assassin bug in it.

Bois Croche

The Perfect Gift

 
YO this is Happy Blake

We have great gift i-deers for everyone especially deer hunters!

By popular demand and just in time for Holiday and deer seasons

We have black light flashlights, perfect for deer hunters to track down the blood trail for dat wounded deer. It's a perfect Christmas gift! We offer free gift wrapping and free delivery  within a 15-mile radius of Ville Platte.

All about Cherry Bounce

Cherry Bounce

 edited/transcribed from La Tasse Cafe

« Cherry Bounce is a thick sweet strong liqueur that people in south Louisiana make around the holidays.  You shake the wild cherry trees (merisiers) so that the berries, called merises or choke cherries, fall onto a sheet. You know they are ripe when they get very red, almost black on the tree. You collect them and make a cherry syrup that is mixed with alcohol to make Cherry Bounce. People say that the birds like to get a hold of the berries before people harvest them and that they make the birds act coo-coo, fly into widows, hallucinate and things, because the prussic acid in them is very toxic. The robins and the ciriers start wobbling and get "on high" comme dit bougre....or low, because they end up on the ground... »

 The Mercedes Vidrine cookbook features a Cherry Bounce recipe similar to this one:

1/4 gallon wild cherries
10 1/2 lbs of sugar
Whiskey

Place cherries (that have the stems removed and have been washed and dried) and sugar in a wide-mouth gallon jar with a good fitting lid and store for 25-30 days until the sugar has all melted and turned to syrup. The cherries will be black when the aging period is over.  

 Take an empty bottle of a fifth of whiskey and pour in some of the cherries and syrup until the bottle is 1/4 full. 

Fill the bottle with whiskey and repeat the process until you have used up all the cherries and syrup. Cover the bottles tightly and let them stand for a week before opening. 

Serve in crystal cordial glasses, or for a treat, over vanilla ice cream.

Tasse Expressions

Bonjour qui ti parles?

Ce café est rechauffée avec du bois croche, pas du bois grave.

Merci Miss Becky (le café est après se faire passer)

Becky après passer le café!

Tu m'attrappeé offguard là!

Arroser l'linge avant repasser!

Pour arroser les chemins pour la poussière.

Le soleil brille icitte a Mamou.. tu peux pas t'imaginer...

Apres deal avec...

Comme dit l'bougre...

Ils ont du gaz qu'a pas ethanol dedans!

Je suis assez bête de crois ça...

T'es comme un homme j'connais, c'est comme une lavette trempe, il flip-flop tout partout!

C'est Valmon, bord icitte!

L'affaire est bonne, hein?

Meilleur que ça moi j'connais pas qui je ferais avec.

Things I learned on the Tasse de Cafe Radio Program

It was a right of passage for the young boys to learn how to cook because when the men would go out in the woods and to the camps to fish and hunt, they would see who would be "the cook", that is, the best cook.

When the tourism bureau of nearby Saint Landry called the Chamber of Commerce of Evangeline Parish asking for help with a fishing trip at Chicot for a group of Louisiana chefs, they were in need of a guide, boats, local cooks... Miss C said "Hold it! Hold it! We seceded from Saint Landry Parish over a hundred years ago! I mean, no offense to Opelousas, but we need to get our people on this! I called Suzy of course and then I called Jesse, our Man of the Year, to cook, he was changing some tiles in our building! I called the Mayor, she was on the road to the ball game! Then I called T-Don, I called T-Don at Cabot! He came out there and did a lil version of the "Lil Donkey".

On peux gone!

Tout les trente-six du mois.

les socos bleus, les socos jaunes, les socos rouges...

La Prairie des Femmes

When I came to the Prairie des Femmes I was a girl, unbelieving and spoiled as any Sacred Heart queen of Evangeline Parish could be in those days, the 1990s. I doubted even the name of the prairie, my new home. Was this la Prairie des Femmes? She was so far flung, the fields were so brown and barrren, the houses, trailers and shacks dotted along the coves. The houses were mostly older, some shacks, and modest trailer or modular homes. There was one big house but it was at the front of the road at Frozard, Olivier Plantation. My future husband knew that I would like that our new home had an old French name. A mysterious name. She had history. But that, you couldn't see... There was not one piece of paved road in the prairie, and most of the road that snaked back into the open fields coiled around a muddy bayou and her steep banks. The road slithered off into the prairie, still hugging the oxbow woods, a scrappy but untouched woodland that roped and roamed along the road that day. How could this place be called la Prairie des Femmes? I barely believed him that first visit out here, when the land was grey, all of the golden rod had browned. He asked me if I liked it. It was like showing a woman a mirror and reflecting herself back at her. It existed. We were there. There was downpayment. It was far. It was wild. It was barren. It was fruitful. It was peaceful. It was dangerous. By and by, I talked to people who knew of the story of the Prairie des Femmes, and I accepted, after seeing the old name on the map, that this new place was my home.