“Jambalaya Girl (Kristen Preau Moore) by Cook Me Somethin’ Mister is a family and women owned business that brings an authentic taste of New Orleans to the world with easy to prepare food products, inspired by Jambalaya Girl's family recipes. Drawing from her family’s upbringing in the New Orleans cooking scene and her creation of a nationwide tailgating fundraiser following Hurricane Katrina, owner Kristen Preau “Jambalaya Girl” created Cook Me Somethin’ Mister initially from her Dad’s jambalaya recipe. All products are now proudly made in New Orleans with the finest ingredients and are specially blended by Chef Paul Prudhomme's Magic Seasoning Blends.” We’re rejoined by the Jambalaya Girl herself, Kristen Preau, to cook up more of the good eating that is Jambalaya Girl food products from New Orleans.
From New Orleans Gambit Weekly, Top 40 Under 40 Cover Story: "Known as the "Jambalaya Girl," Kristen Preau says she was given the title while stirring her father's cast-iron pot full of jambalaya at her brother's sporting events . . . Preau came up with the concept for Cook Me Somethin' Mister while traveling across the country to raise money for New Orleans following Hurricane Katrina. She raised $100,000 for her hometown by serving jambalaya made from her father's recipe at 11 college tailgates. It made her realize that people donated not only because they loved New Orleans, but they also loved the jambalaya."
“Jambalaya Girl’s Dad, Paul, used to specially manufacture outdoor cookers for some of the top chefs in New Orleans and he always cooked classic New Orleans recipes, like Jambalaya Girl’s jambalaya, to showcase his cooking equipment. Paul manufactured the gas burner that the late Chef Paul Prudhomme used to prepare his famous Blackened Red Fish recipe. The burner was featured in Chef Paul’s mail order catalog and is pictured in his first cookbook, Chef Paul Prudhomme’s Louisiana Kitchen. (1984)”
The Jambalaya Girl product line is available on Kristen’s Website as well as on Amazon.
This is your captain speaking. I'm honor your turn. Captain of Horn America line and as master. You're listening to the so called restaurant show on AM 830 KLAA and welcome back. It is hour two of the SoCal restaurant show and happily we're here with you every Saturday morning from 10 AM until 12 noon right here on AMA 30 KLAA, the home of Angels baseball 2024. And you can also catch us on the AMA 30 KLAA Angels app. I'm Andy Harris, the executive producer and co-host of the show. Welcome back. My colleague chef Andrew Grull of the newly opened Calico Fish House in the Sunset Beach area of Huntington Beach will be joining us a little later in the show with his usual Ask the Chef segment. And we're going to pick up the very controversial subject of junk fees. There's some legislation that just went into effect the first of this month about those. It has some impact on restaurants. So we'll kind of review and also get a restaurateur's point of view on all of that. And we're enthusiastically presented each and every week by Melissa's World Variety produce and West Coast primates talking about wonderful food and wonderful food cities. We are venturing back to New Orleans. If you have a bad meal there, it's your own fault. I just got to tell you I haven't come back there from a couple weeks ago. And we are speaking with a discovery of mine when I was in New Orleans. They've been discovered before I was in New Orleans. But we are speaking with Kristen Pro, otherwise known as the Jambalaya Girl. Her company is called Cook Me Something Mr. And what she has done is package blends for some signature New Orleans items that you can crop at home and made with the best ingredients. Kristen, welcome back. And thanks for hanging in there. Thank you, Andy. Good to be here with you. Now, just for the uninitiated, just very briefly, can you explain the difference between Jambalaya and Gumbo? Because I know there's some confusion out there. And you know, as the Jambalaya Girl, you are the perfect person to set us straight. Yes, no problem. I mean, they're both very basic flavor, basically, very simple. One pot dishes. Jambalaya is a rice-based dish that typically is served with chicken and sausage or on dewy, or you can make it as a seafood dish, but it's a kettle cooked. You put all the ingredients in there, the Louisiana trinity of vegetables. You got your stock in there. You got your seasonings. You throw them in there and then the rice hooks up that seasonings, and you can enjoy the whole meal pretty much in one bite from that one dish. Now, Gumbo. Gumbo starts with the roux, and it's more of a super stew, or stew, as you can liken it to. When you start with that roux to get that dark, rich flavor into the dish of the, you know, part flour, part oil, or part fat, once you get that going, you would add your vegetables as well, just very similar flavor profile with the ingredients that we use, but it's the same thing. You could do it with chicken and sausage. You can do it with seafood, but this one, you would typically serve it as a stew with a small scoop of rice or in southwest Louisiana. They'll even put a little scoop of potato salad into their gumbo. So to eat their own, but those are the basic differences between the two is the style of the finished dish. I think very clear. Now, before the break, we did mention that your jambalaya recipe is derived from your father. Now, for your gumbo base, where did that family recipe come from? That comes from a mama. That's fantastic. Many generations. The gumbo is the tradition for us. We do make it year-round, but it is on Christmas Eve is your go-to where most New Orleans are going to make a big pot of gumbo from scratch, because it takes hours from preparing the roots, all the, you know, you kind of bring the party to the pot. You're hanging out in the kitchen when you're getting ready for Christmas Eve dinner. And that recipe, my mom taught it to me, you know, I learned with her inside and then outside the cast arm process, my dad, but I'm delighted that we were able to take her recipe. And I even, I work with a local chef that's renowned as well. I think I had to share that with you. Chef George Road, he worked with Al Copeland. He was doing his pop eyes and all the restaurants in New Orleans, but he is a specialty product development chef that he can take those scratch recipes and make them into, you know, the commissary blends or the, or the specific blends to put it into a mix like mine. But he really nailed it to get the color and the flavor profile of my mom of gumbo is so easy now that all you have to do is boil water. And, you know, Kristen, people really appreciate that. Now, your family really goes back in the New Orleans culinary community, because apparently your father Paul is kind of good at putting together kitchen gadgets, very sophisticated kitchen gadgets, for the kitchen. And I think your original introduction to Chef Paul Prudham was something that he made for him. Tell us about that. Yes, yes. I mean, that's funny. I'm a jumble eye girl, but I grew up in a well shot, but my dad was a, he was a go-to guy for all these chefs. This is back in the, you know, late '70s, early '80s when festivals were really starting to catch on with French quarter fest and jazz fest when they're really in their early days. And they needed a way to cook at the festival, so they'd go to my dad and he'd get this outdoor gas burner, double cookers. He was welding it there in his warehouse. And Chef Paul commissioned him to make a single gas burner that he ended up selling in his catalog and featuring in his first cookbook because of blackened redfish. When Chef Paul became a sensation at K-Paul's with his black and redfish and everyone was trying to do it at home, it creates a lot of smoke. So we had a lot of smoke alarms going off and he said, "No, no, no. You need to cook this outside. You need to have the ventilation." And then they would, the customers would order a gas cooker. They'd send it to my dad's company. My dad's company would get in touch with him to find the nearest Greyhound bus terminal so he could ship you your outdoor gas cooker for blackened and your redfish at home. Kristen got to love it and if memory serves, what Paul Prudham created with his black and redfish actually resulted in a shortage of redfish in the United States. It was definitely wild and quite a phenomenon. You know, I hope the redfish has been able to restock itself over the years, but, you know, can you imagine? Yeah, I know. I mean, talk about, you know, so many fish in the sea, not redfish. And this is the day before social media. I mean, he would be the legend of what he wanted. No, no, we're going back. As you say, it's the late 70s, early 80s. I believe Chef Paul's first cookbook was 1984. So, you know, that's 40 years ago. I mean, it's kind of ages us all, but boy, you know, yeah, something to remember. Now, one thing we haven't done, Kristen, and I want to do is I want you to talk about the full product line because your jambalaya is excellent. I made it this week with shrimp. Thank you for sending the samples. And we know you make gumbo, but tell us what else is in the line. Yes, we've gotten to expanding our New Orleans flavor and kind of the signature of our flavors. We always start with a rich stock that you'll find that consistent in all the products. But that's blended into it. And we have actually turned a yellow rice with some New Orleans flavor as one of our newer items. It's a blended yellow rice with turmeric. And we also have the stock, the Trinity vegetables. They have the dehydrated vegetables in the blend that you truly do just boil the water. You can prepare that with seafood. You can prepare vegetables as just as a rice dish to go along with your protein. But we've added flavor to yellow rice on a half-ite. One-pot seasoning that could be used for a pastalaya, pastalaya is very similar to jambalaya, but instead of rice, we like to do a little pasta in there. And I just got back from Blue Bridge, Louisiana. We are launching a new jambalaya boudin. So I'm really going across South Louisiana to source from the best makers in the state. So, yes, those are some of the new items that always consistent with our flavor. And there's a big misconception across the country that New Orleans food is oh spicy hot. And it's so far from that. New Orleans is flavorful dishes. And that's something that I wanted to come across. But there are some box mixes on the market that might be a little bit salty or too spicy. And I just think that that's a misperceived notion about good food from New Orleans. Well, Kristen, you bring up a big point and we don't want to knock anybody. But there's some other packaged jambalaya mixes that are out there. And I've tasted some of them. And you read the ingredient panel and boy, they are just loaded with salt. And in terms of a packaged jambalaya mix, having prepared yours, this isn't a class by itself. And I love the idea that everything is actually made and packaged in New Orleans. It's a family operation. And you know, you are using as your copacker, Chef Paul Prudham's company, which again is a legacy to him. The magic seasoning blends are in a lot of kitchens across the country. And for good reasons, you know, chefs have a lot of different opportunities in terms of where they want to buy their seasonings from. So I think that's an endorsement in and of itself. And again, credit to all of you. Thank you. Thank you. That was, I'm blown away by that response. Thank you. And as we need to say goodbye, Kristen, one more time, you know, in the South, your product is widely available, but really easy to go online. And you mentioned also on Amazon, but directly on your website, just one more reminder, you know, this one isn't tough in terms of your website. Yes. Yeah. So what do you say, Jambalaya or Jambalaya? It's J-A-M-B-A-L-A-Y-A girl, G-I-R-L dot com. Ladies and gentlemen, it is the Jambalaya girl herself, Christian Pro, the company in family owned company in New Orleans, female owned, cooked me something Mr. Really doing something special in, in the Big Easy. And again, if you'd like to prepare either Jambalaya or Gumbo at home, want to take a few shortcuts and use an excellent product, I don't think you can do too much better. Kristen, again, thanks. And we look forward to seeing and touch. You are listening to the SoCal restaurant show. When we return, yes, it is the return of Long Beach Burger Week. And we have the team from Isim Brewing in their first time in the event. And of course, they're not going in easy. It is the SoCal restaurant show. 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