Sole food.
The crisp pastries called shoe soles ($2 each) were traditionally made from old (and sometimes tough) pie dough, Frances Chauvin told me, but when their popularity outpaced her leftovers, she began making hers with fresh dough (and a little old dough, for character), plus cinnamon and sugar. Some folks shape theirs like literal shoe soles (much like Mexican huaraches); Mrs. Chauvin's are round because that suits her most convenient portable container.
If you pick up only one pie, make it a cushaw (not shown; small, $5), prepared from a green-and-white-striped squash that you're unlikely come across up North. Substituted for pumpkin, it gives its pies a pale greenish-yellow cast and a milder, more delicate flavor. Also shown below: a shoe sole, in closeup and from below; Mrs. Chauvin; and the St. Charles streetcar line at Broadway, a 15-minute walk from the market.
Blue Ribbon Pies
47500 Holmes Lane, Hammond, Louisiana
At the Uptown farmer's market, in the parking lot behind 200 Broadway, New Orleans
Tuesday, 9:00 a.m.-1:00 p.m.
www.CrescentCityFarmersMarket.org
Note: Mrs. Chauvin doesn't attend every week; call 985-345-7515 (before noon or after 3:00 p.m, please!) to confirm
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