Pay New Orleans a visit, urges king of Cajun cuisine

We caught up with famed New Orleans chef Paul Prudhomme during his visit to Puyallup for last week's Associated Grocers Inc. trade show, where he cooked up fresh salmon with one of his many Magic Seasoning Blends. We found out what the prolific cookbook author and award-winning restaurateur (Prudhomme owns K-Paul's Louisiana Kitchen) is up to these days and how the restaurant industry in his beloved city is faring nearly a year after Hurricane Katrina.

Q: You're always up to something. What new projects do you have in the works?

A: We're doing a new TV show on PBS. [The cooking show, tentatively titled "Taste the Passion," should begin airing in January.]

Q: We're in the middle of barbecue season. How do you like to spice up the grill?

A: Any well-balanced blend of herbs and spices would really work. We have a Barbecue Magic and it has a very small amount of natural smoke in it. It's a wonderful product. Herbs and spices are just so wonderful with food, they really bring the flavors out.

Q: How is New Orleans recovering?

A: It's going to be a long time before New Orleans is back to where it was. We still don't have conventions coming to town. We haven't seriously started rebuilding the houses. I live in the Ninth Ward, where the huge devastation was ... there's still trash in the streets and piles of trash on the sidewalks.

[Restaurants have reopened in the French Quarter and Garden District, but in not many other neighborhoods, Prudhomme said.]

Some locals are coming now to eat, but the French Quarter and area makes its living off tourism and has for half a century, and that's not happening now, so it's a hard struggle.

Q: How can people help?

A: The best thing to do is come to New Orleans for as long as you can. Two days on a weekend if you're working. If you're retired, come for Thursday, Friday, Saturday, Sunday. It would be an enormous lift for the city to see people coming in. Spending money would be the best thing anybody can do. There's no doubt by the end of the year there's going to be a lot of restaurants that have been in the French Quarter for a long time that won't be able to survive.

Karen Gaudette: 206-515-5618 or kgaudette@seattletimes.com