Buttermilk Beignets

Up until I was about 12 years old, my parents took my sister, Tracy, and me to Easter service at St. Louis Cathedral in Jackson Square. The only way they could keep us in check during mass was by bribing us to be good and quiet with promises of post-church beignets at Café de Monde across the street. We'd get so excited about the prospect of massive quantities of sugar that we probably would have done pretty much anything to ensure we got beignets before going home. Mom was a bit of a stickler when it came to sweets; I mean, at our house, Raisin Bran® was considered toeing the line of junk food! So you can only imagine how amped up we were at the mere prospect of real, honest-to-goodness fried dough piled sky-high with a mountain of powdered sugar.

Like good southern kids we were dressed to the nines—me in my blue blazer, khakis, and white oxfords, Tracy in her Easter dress—and Mom, like all the proper matriarchs, with an Easter hat perched on her head that has a wingspan of at least 18 inches. No sooner had the crispy-fried beignets arrived than our holiday best was coated in a dusting of white powder, as it was our tradition to see who could blow the snowy confectioners' sugar off of the mountain of beignets and onto the other the quickest. After we'd made a complete mess of ourselves, we'd get down to business and devour our crispy-fried beignets, still hot from the fryer and so amazingly tender.