“I think I ended up with twelve pieces of chicken, maybe more,” she said, with a slight Cajun accent. “I ate so much Hamburger Helper, I never want to eat it again.”

Spedale quickly learned her way around the kitchen with the help of her then mother-in-law Bonnie, starting with Ragout Patat (browned meat and potatoes which she served over rice) and advancing to spaghetti. She had smothered pork chops down to a science in no time.

Today, she is known for her down home style food made  in cast iron pots and healthy meal prepping. The pots and the recipes she uses for her business, t’Pot Noir (the black pot) Cajun Kitchen, have been collected over the years. Most are from her family.

t’Pot Noir customers can find the names of some of these family members on Spedale’s monthly plate lunch menu, for example Aunt Lois’ shrimp fettuccine and MiMi’s cabbage rolls. She even pays homage to her husband’s mother, who is not known as a great cook, according to Spedale, except for her manicotti.

The plate lunch menu changes from month to month. In addition to plate lunches, Spedale also delivers pots of hamburger steaks and gravy, beef vegetable soup, etouffee and other meals to local industry and to families. She does meal prepping for R3, Whole 30 and Paleo dietary requirements, as well.

Some of her fondest memories of being in the kitchen as a child are the times she spent with her Mamom Lilly. Spedale pronounces the name lil-LAY with the accent on the second syllable, and she thought about naming her business after her.

“I helped her make rum balls. When she butchered a pig, we would have a big la boucherie. She would clamp that meat grinder to the table and we’d make homemade sausage. When she went to the chicken yard, well, when she hobbled into the chicken yard because she had broken ankle and it never healed right, she would stop and get really still. Then all of a sudden, she would swoop down lightning fast – and she was 200 pounds – grab a chicken by the neck, twirl it in the air a few times and then throw it over the fence.”

Spedale and her sister didn’t help with the chicken prep or cooking, but they did enjoy fighting each other with the chicken feet, she said.

“Mamom Lilly didn’t know how to cook small. She always cooked in one of those big Magnalite pots that covered two burners,” Spedale said.

At her maternal grandparents’ home, it was her PaPop Nolan who did most of the cooking and Spedale loved his white beans and rice served with fresh-caught fried fish, a common meal when she was there.

“MawMaw Leon only cooked with the burner turned up high, but I tell you what. She could peel an ice chest full of shrimp in the time it took me and her four daughters to peel the second ice chest, and she made a weenie spaghetti that was so good, if I could have anyone cook me anything today, it would be her, and I would ask for her weenie spaghetti.”