Jazz Fest Performers Take You Inside Their Kitchens and Out on the Road – Louisiana Eats – It’s New Orleans

To celebrate Jazz Fest, we’re taking you back to 2013, where we learned how these fabulous performers get fed.

Life on the road might be difficult for traveling musicians and their crews, but the perks of this lifestyle are almost impossible to replicate.

Chef Anne Churchill spends her summers traveling as a cook for one of rock’s most popular touring bands and has the stories to prove it. She joins us on Louisiana Eats! to talk about the mammoth responsibilities of cooking at amphitheaters across the country.

We’ll also hear from Johnny Sketch and the Dirty Notes, whose decade together on the road has honed their tastes for the weird and wild. Their firsthand accounts with late-night diners will get you hungry for donuts, Philly cheese steaks, and kangaroo burgers. Make sure to grab their, now-released, album 2000 Day’s.

And when it’s finally time to come home, few know our musicians better than Elsa Hahne. She’ll share stories about getting these public figures to open up to her privately in their own kitchens.

Donut Bread Pudding (Serves at least 8 hungry band members)

4 dozen donut holes

8 eggs

1 1/2 cups milk

1 teaspoon vanilla extract

1/2 cup sugar (optional)

1 cup powdered sugar

8 tablespoons butter, softened to room temperature

1/2 cup (or more) bourbon

Mix together the eggs, milk, sugar and vanilla.  Break up the donut holes and add the liquid mixture to make a pudding mixture. (Add a bit more milk if the donuts were stale and you can’t squeeze milk out of the mixture.)

Pre-heat the oven to 350 degrees. Pour the pudding into a greased, rectangular baking pan and bake for approximately 45 minutes, until the pudding is lightly browned on top.

Beat the butter and powdered sugar together until smooth.  Beat in the bourbon.  Spread the butter sauce over the hot bread pudding and serve.

Bon Ton Café Crawfish Jambalaya (Serves 4)

1 cup chopped onion
1 cup thinly sliced green onions
12 tablespoons margarine
1 lb. crawfish tail meat
1 1/2 cups cooked rice
3 tablespoons freshly chopped parsley
Salt and pepper to taste
 
Sauté onion and green onions in margarine until translucent.  Stir in crawfish and cook for 3 – 5 minutes.  Add cooked rice, parsley and salt and pepper, stirring together well. Allow to sit for 3 – 5 minutes and serve.