Ask the chef: Q/A: Local food truck owner has fun with family when he’s not working

Published 3:00 pm Wednesday, October 14, 2020

Robert Romero owns and runs his own food truck, Blayzin Specialties, and makes local favorites from stuffed bread to boudin, pork and chicken cracklins for his customers.

Romeo initially retired from this job as an operator at International Paper in Broussard and opened his truck because cooking and being around others was equally a hobby and a passion of his.

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But when he’s not cooking five days a week from 7 a.m. to 1 p.m. at his location at 1115 Center St, he enjoys spending time with his family.

What do you like to do when you’re not cooking?

Play with my grandbabies and I like to play baseball. Throwing my grandson a little ball — it was something I did growing up. I coached Little League when I was younger. And we are trying to get him into the swing of things, even though he’s only 3 1/2 and we’re trying to teach him. That’s what I mostly do with my spare time.

Do you like to do anything else?

I do like to do deer and hog, wild game processing. I also like to do that as a side gig. It’s just something I like doing. We make sausage from wild game. I enjoyed hunting but I haven’t been hunting as much as I used to because I put all of my time in Blayzin Specialties but I did a lot of hunting before then. I still go occasionally.

What do you like to hunt?

Mostly deer and I do not duck hunt. It’s just never been a thing for me. Mostly it has been deer.

Has baseball always been a passion of yours?

I had a travel team for seven years and we played ball all over the state and of course my son, he played ball from when he was 7 years old to he was 15, and we had a traveling team called Cajun League all over and played ball. He graduated high school and college but didn’t play ball but now he has a little boy and now we’re getting back into it again.

What is something people don’t know about you?

I guess I am a quiet person, even though it doesn’t seem that way. But I have always been around my family. I come from a big family. I come from 10 kids, five boys, and five girls, and I was the last kid, so I have always been a family person.

What is your favorite thing to cook?

Jambalaya. I find it’s the one dish that has everything you can have in it, I mean they have your meat, sausage, your vegetables, your rice, everything in one bowl and if you cook a good jambalaya, you can feed them and you don’t need to cook everything that goes with it. You don’t need a four-course meal. That’s just my thinking.

How do you make yours?

We put chicken and sausage, pork meat, and all of the above. Our best ones are chicken, pork meat and smoked sausage.