Hi and Happy Mardi Gras from New Orleans!

I’d like to thank you all for your interest in the Black Iron Skillet Project and assure you that it is for real. I am not just collecting them for myself! LOL First, (and shhhhhh) I have never aquired a fond affection for the tool although I have a wonderful appreciate for a cook who can use one. Second, how many skillets can one woman use, anyway? 🙂 So, please don’t be afraid to season a skillet and send it down or contact me for an address of an evacuee in another part of the country who needs one. You can find our mailing address and more information here http://www.synergysportsmarketing.com/skillets.html

Also, please don’t wait until 2020 to come visit. Tourism is our mainstay and without it, we won’t bounce back nearly as quickly. Both the good and the bad stories that you hear are true. There is a full and complete spectrum of situations. There are both people living out of their cars or in tents and getting food from the Red Cross trucks and then there are the debutants who are counting the Austraillian crystals on their ermine-trimmed gowns before their party. There are areas where the lights are on and most people are open for business and there are places where there are still houses across the road. The good areas are really (considering it all) good and the bad places are horrible. Come and see both.

One thing that we can all agree on is that our food and culture sets us apart from any other city in the world. You can all come down and enjoy that right now. Our streets are safe. The water is gone. You can see as much or as little of the good stuff or the devastation as you want. Our post-Katrina menus are a little different – generally the front of one piece of 8 1/2 x 11 paper and we may or may not have everything on it that day. You mouth will have a party with whatever we do have. Our hours of operation are a little different too, but that will give you more time to help someone clean out their house or party on Bourbon Street. You can do either or both; our city is full of all sorts of opportunities!

Please do come down… visit K-Pauls, eat a po-boy, have some of Mother’s bread pudding, grab some boiled shrimp, some Abita beer, and go sit by the lake and enjoy the view. Come visit! And bring a seasoned skillet with you!

Gale Marie Abbass
Organizer
Black Iron Skillet Project – from one cook to another