Crawfish DreamsFor forty years Camille Broussard has cooked for other people. As a young bride she moved from Louisiana to Los Angeles and settled in the thriving community of Watts; but many of her hopes went up in the flames of the 1965 riots. Now it’s 1984--and she’s determined to cook for herself. She’ll pickle okra, sell meatpies at church, peddle pralines--whatever it takes to revive her scattered family, her neighborhood, and herself. Her grandson Nicholas has just been released from prison and takes up residence in her backyard, and her sons want her to move away. But with support from her talented if unemployed neighbor Lester Pep and her eager but hapless lesbian daughter Grace, she tries to start a business. By serving up recipes from her childhood, she hopes to rekindle her crawfish dreams. Gracefully written, with a wonderful sense of humor, Crawfish Dreams is a high-spirited novel about family, responsibility, and the pursuit of personal happiness. |
Contents
Section 13 | 159 |
Section 14 | 168 |
Section 15 | 181 |
Section 16 | 190 |
Section 17 | 197 |
Section 18 | 215 |
Section 19 | 250 |
Section 20 | 265 |
Section 9 | 92 |
Section 10 | 115 |
Section 11 | 135 |
Section 12 | 150 |
Section 21 | 275 |
Section 22 | 324 |
Section 23 | 357 |
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Common terms and phrases
ain't Anthony apricot Baldwin Hills better black pepper bottle Broussard called Camille looked Camille's Camille's Creole chicken church Claude Compton Avenue cook cousin crawfish Daddy Datsun dead dollars door dress eyes Father Sullivan felt garden girl going gone gonna Grace Grandma gumbo hair hand head husband Joseph Juge Juge's kitchen knew Leimert Park liqueur living Louis Louisiana Mama Marc married Martin de Porres meat pie Mother Gibson never Nicholas night night girl okra Pep's pick pies po'boys porch pralines prayed Pretty Miss Quentin Raymond remembered restaurant Riots rosary Rouby sauce Seretha smell stay stop street sure T-Papa talk tell thing took truck trying turned Urbain waiting walked Watts Watts Riots window Yvette Yvette's
Popular passages
Page 148 - Set me as a seal upon thine heart, as a seal upon thine arm: for love is strong as death; jealousy is cruel as the grave: the coals thereof are coals of fire, which hath a most vehement flame.
Page 147 - Let us get up early to the vineyards; let us see if the vine flourish, whether the tender grape appear, and the pomegranates bud forth: there will I give thee my loves. The mandrakes give a smell, and at our gates are all manner of pleasant fruits, new and old, which I have laid up for thee, O my beloved.
Page 147 - I sleep, but my heart waketh: it is the voice of my beloved that knocketh, saying: Open to me, my sister, my love, my dove, my undefiled: for my head is filled with dew, and my locks with the drops of the night.
Page 147 - It was but a little that I passed from them, but I found Him Whom my soul loveth : I held Him, and would not let Him go, until I had brought Him into my mother's house, and into the chamber of her that conceived me.
Page 147 - I will rise now, and go about the city In the streets, and in the broad ways I will seek him whom my soul loveth : I sought him, but I found him not.
Page 146 - The voice of my beloved ! behold he cometh Leaping upon the mountains, skipping upon the hills. My beloved is like a roe, or a young hart : Behold, he standeth behind our wall, He looketh forth at the windows, Shewing himself through the lattice.
Page 42 - Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil.
Page 147 - Awake, O north wind; and come, thou south; Blow upon my garden, That the spices thereof may flow out. Let my beloved come into his garden, And eat his pleasant fruits.
Page 132 - ... saucepan and stir over a low heat until the sugar is dissolved.
Page 25 - After that, she heard them -whispering among themselves. The curving highway stretched into oblivion, a vast sea of lanes rising and falling over pillars of rock. Box houses, brown skies, beige hills, dry bushes, all -were being swept away on time's noisy current.