Cooking Up A Story: The Hungry Ghost of Rue Orleans

It only seemed right that we dedicate at least one Cooking Up A Story post this month to a spooooooky book and we found the perfect one in The Hungry Ghost of Rue Orleans by Mary Quattlebaum and illustrated by Patricia Casteleo. It's all about a little girl named Marie and her father who open a restaurant in an old house in New Orleans. Little do they know that their new restaurant is also the home of Fred, a ghost who is none too happy with the situation. But don't worry! The budding restaurateurs and the ghost find a way to live together happily. Ghost Puffs or, as they're more commonly known, Beignets play a big part in that happy ending so the Kid and I decided to whip up a batch.

This was a first for both the Kid and me. Unbelievably, I've never been to New Orleans and I've never had a beignet, those fried puffs of dough that are among the many reasons cited to visit the Cafe Du Monde specifically and New Orleans in general. So I asked my blogging friend Maggie of Notes from Maggie's Farm for the recipe she uses. She referred us to John Besh's recipe, which you can find on Epicurious.com. We halved it and still had more than enough beignets... er... "ghost puffs" to share with any hungry ghosts living in our house.

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