Can’t get your fill of fried pig fat?  Then head over to the Cut Off Youth Center (205 West 79th Street, Cut Off, LA) for a “cracklin’ cook-off” on Saturday, April 4, 2009, from 12 noon to 4 pm, when the best graton makers of Bayou Lafourche go head to head.  For more information, call 985-632-7616.

I won’t be competing; my only attempt at gratons in a black iron chaudiere ended badly:  the cracklins turned into mush and the pot had a thick, nearly impenetrable layer of burned skin.  So I’l be paying close attention and taking pictures and notes at the cook-off.