Taste of Mardi Gras-Louisiana Restaurant Association- Alexandria, LA Friday, February 12, 2009

This chef owner spent her birthday at the Louisiana Restaurant Association-Cenla Chapter's annual Taste of Mardi Gras on Friday, February 12, 2009 at the Alexandria Riverfront Center.

We chose to do a cheesecake tasting bar and served our savory cold fiesta corn dip with chips.

This was a fun event with about 3000 in attendance. "So many cheesecakes, so little time". That is what we heard over and over during the 3 hour event! Chef Andrea Dunn and I stayed busy and owner Rick Evans visited and answered all questions. We had a fun time.

The Baton Rouge based band, Stormy provided wonderful entertainment and came by the booth to visit prior to the start of the festivities.

Taste of Mardi Gras - Alexandria Style!

The Taste of Mardi Gras 2009 was held at the Alexandria Riverfront Center on February 20, 2009. With over 3500 in attendance, we had a steady stream of tasters for 3 hours. Rick and I laughed and reminded each other that this was like those days back at LSU when we worked concessions! We also reminded each other that we had done that many years ago and that we "still have it!" Too much fun, with the neighboring booth being frozen hurricanes and margaritas, not only were we in an awesome location, but we were in the "fun zone."

We served our Mardi Gras Coleslaw in Asian Boxes with wooden chopsticks and our now famous "N'awlins Style Bread Pudding with the Pecan Praline Sauce". We served 39 full steamtable sized pans of the pudding topped with 8 gallons of the praline sauce and over 1500 boxes of the coleslaw.

Next year we will bring the entire family up from Baton Rouge and get them a table to enjoy the festivities. Over 38 food and drink vendors participated and we are proud to say we were among the best!