Page 47 - Volume 15 Number 8

According to the 1901 Picayune Creole Cookbook, published by The Picayune, a New Orleans newspaper: “The ancient French colonists brought the custom of serving sweet entremets and eaters, such as beignets, compotes, soufflés and gelees from the homeland to Louisiana.” Beignets have gained folkloric status in New Orleans, prompting the Louisiana government in 1986 to officially name them the state doughnut.
Now, this beignet run on which I’m embarking is a mission. From the previous page you know that I don’t have any more extra time then the rest of the crew during our short break. The difference is I’m the captain. We’ll leave when I say we leave, and we will leave on time because that’s a mission, too. The agent has volunteered to run the flight paperwork down the jet bridge to the FO after my review. He’s seen this captain-buying-beignets thing before and he wants us to leave the gate on time as well. His courtesy will give me a couple extra minutes for the mission. The beignets are, very reliably, a three-minute cooking job. The only possible gotcha? The wait- ing line at the beignet shop, which is just outside of security. When I come back through security I will be in the expedited employee line. I won’t have any luggage, just the stuff in my pockets and a big bag of beignets. This could work.
Including myself, mine is a crew of five: My first officer and three flight attendants. I’m first in line at the shop and I order a dozen beignets. The beignets are stored in a refrigerator as dough. The cook drops them into a deep fryer much like you would French fries, and cooking time is indeed exactly three minutes.
Once done the cook places the delicacies into a square, red checkerboard, cardboard basket; three to a basket and sprinkles (ya right, sprinkles) them with confectioner’s sugar. I asked for the powdered sugar to be separate this time so as to try a new eating technique in the cockpit, hoping to avoid the predictable powdered sugar cloud. Just breathing on a loaded beignet can trigger a sugar explosion – or worse (more on this in a minute).
Belly Buttons
I’ve found over the years that of all the uncertainties in life, there is at least this one absolute certainty: There is no way to eat a beignet in the cockpit without getting powdered sugar on your dark blue pants. Ask any airline pilot. The LA Times once said: “.... an insidious Louisianan cousin of the donut that exists to get powdered sugar on your face.” Uh-huh, right. On your face, hair (if you have any) necktie, shirt,
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