Today Cedar Hill (Duncanville, Tex.), Vol. 39, No. 10, Ed. 1 Thursday, June 3, 2004 Page: 15 of 22
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Cajun cook gives new meaning
1Carrie Out
By JUSTIN JONES
Today Staff
ne day the Lord just spoke to
me and told me to quit my
cleaning service and to start
building my clientele, to get
ready to go to the mountain
top."
For more than six years now Carrie
Johnson, the owner of Carrie's Cajun
Cooking, has dedicated her time to
reaching that "mountain top."
The 55-year-old Opelousas, La.,
native's recent stop in her quest has led
to one of DeSoto's new restaurants,
which sits on the corner of Hampton
and Dalton, across from Dairy Queen.
"It ain't nothing I did, either," the
Monument of Faith church member said
of her new restaurant. "It's all God's
work."
Since Oct. 16, Johnson has been serv-
ing what she calls "God's anointed
food" out of the 400-square-foot carry-
out only restaurant.
"This right here, is all God. Can't
nobody take credit for this but God, and
that's the truth," Johnson said of why
she says her food is anointed by God.
"When he says to get ready for the
mountain top ... you have know that
you will go down in the valley first,
before he shoots you up."
Knowing what God had in store for
her is why Johnson was able to endure
spending her first six years of business
barbecuing underneath a tree in front of
her church.
Also knowing what God had in store
for her is why Johnson wasted no time
in getting her current building after a
close; friend told her about it.
"I always knew my time underneath
the tree was running out, and that just
goes to show the power of God," John-
son said of getting her building. "When
I first started it was only barbecue, but
people started asking for gumbo and
stuff. I got the building to cook more
Cajun food."
However, due to bad contractors and
being a single woman, it took Johnson
more than a year to conduct business
out of the building, to provide DeSoto
with her Cajun cooking.
"People always want to take ad-
T~^ recipes always have seemed to just come in my
mind, and they would just come together and turn
out real good. I know that's the Lord's doing. All I do
is put together the recipes. He tells me what ttoado a\
everything comes out perfect.
— Carrie Johnson
Owner, Carrie's Cajun Cooking
vantage of you. I like the location and
it's just a blessing to have a building,"
Johnson said. "1 thought at the time,
when I got it, the wav the building
looked, I could just come in and do
business right away and I couldn't. But
God has a plan for everything."
Although Carrie's Cajun Cooking is
carryout onlv, Johnson plans on
expanding her business one day, she
just has to wait until God tells her first.
"1 know that this is just a stepping
stone," Johnson said of her current
building. "I know this business is going
much further than where it is now,
because of who God is.
"In God's timing I do plan on having
a bigger place one day. So to know that
everything will be good to go, I'm not
going to make any moves until God tells
me to."
Just like Johnson said he told her to
quit her cleaning service to use a small
yellow smoker to barbecue underneath
a tree full time.
"A lot of people was too proud to
stop underneath a tree to get food,"
Johnson said on one of her troubles
starting out. "Once they got to know my
food, it wasn't limited to them."
Neither was Johnson's will to suc-
ceed.
Despite fighting the blazing Texas
summer heat and breezy winters, John-
son started out making only around
$100 a day — just enough money to get
by.
But as time passed, and word spread
of her barbecuing, she starting making
around $300 a day, and sometimes up to
$400.
"Everything was extremely hard at
first. When I tell you hard, I mean to the
point to where. If I had not known God,
I would have given up doing this,"
Johnson said of her early troubles. "The
warfare I went through was
unreal. At that point, some-
times vou tend to think people
are with you ... but until you
go through certain things,
Today photos byCHRIS HUDSON
Since October 2003, Carrie Johnson has satisfied
that's when you realize God is folks' Cajun cravings by offering carryout food from
is a
really watching over you.
"God allows you to go
through certain things, al-
though, maybe at the time, it
sounds really hard. But
through tough times you get
to know God better. The Lord
patient God."
So was Carrie, especially considering
she sat underneath a tree for fiv e days a
week, from 8 a.m. to sunset, barbecuing
on the smallest of smokers.
"It was all faith. God told me un-
derneath the tree one day that if I could
just endure being underneath the tree,
he would take me to the mountain top,"
she said. "At that point, I told mvself 1
was not going to be guilty of not
enduring because of his glory."
Her dedication eventually led to the
purchasing of a $1,000, six-foot smoker
— a investment which Johnson said
resulted in the turning point of her
business.
With the six-foot smoker, Johnson
was able to cook nearly 100 pounds of
meat compared to just 15 with her old,
small yellow smoker.
That significant increase not onlv
enabled her to cook more meat, and
faster, but it turned her small sporadic
lines into long ones. It also doubled her
previous daily earnings, from nearlv
$400 to around $1,000.
"When I first started out, 1 couldn't
afford nothing, and it was just some-
thing to do," Johnson said, noting that's
why she had to use her small yellow
smoker. "My small smoker was some-
thing you would want to put on the
her 400-square foot facility on Hampton Road in De-
Soto. The restaurant may be small, but its menu boasts
big flavor. Johnson, a Louisiana native, credits God for
her cooking skills and business success.
patio. But when I got mv six-foot Mnoh
er, that's when the business renllv, reallv
kicked off. 1 guess it was the people
seeing the bigger smoker Plus thev
liked the flavor of the food, w hich Cod
has put Ins anointing on. because it
wasn't mv doing."
Let Johnson tell it, and she had
nothing to do with her recipes, either.
"My recipes always have seemed to
just come in mv mind, and thev would
just come together and turn out real
good," she said "I know that's the
Lord's doing. All I do is put together the
recipes he tells me what to do. and
everything comes out perfect."
Some of the featured items on Car-
rie's Cajun Cooking menu are crawfish
etouffe (served over dirtv rice). Cajun
style fried catfish, Cajun-stvle jam-
balava, hot boudin, beet with mush
room sauce, smothered pork steak
(served in rich Cajun sauce over rice),
sweet buttered yarns. Ca|im tried cab-
bage, mustard and turnip greens mixed
together, gumbo, shrimp creole and
pinto beans, stuffed crawfish baked
potato, brisket and a assortment of
Cajun desserts.
"It's reallv all a gift from God,” lohn-
son said of her cooking and her bus-
iness. "I enjov cooking because' 1 enjov
seeing people's faces light up w hen thev
taste the food. Just knowing thev are
pleased, that's when 1 get full."
n; Wj#Wright, the Su-
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tion must be announced by every
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in 1963, he had an experienced law-
yer at his trial. The attorney easily
poked holes in the prosecution's
flimsy case and Gideon was ac-
quitted.
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Gooch, Robin. Today Cedar Hill (Duncanville, Tex.), Vol. 39, No. 10, Ed. 1 Thursday, June 3, 2004, newspaper, June 3, 2004; Duncanville, Texas. (https://texashistory.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metapth623802/m1/15/: accessed July 16, 2024), University of North Texas Libraries, The Portal to Texas History, https://texashistory.unt.edu.; crediting Zula B. Wylie Memorial Library.