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He’s originally from Jeanerette. He’s been a construction project manager, a restaurant owner, a classic rock guitar player and now, a YouTuber. Rick Deare, better known first as Cooyon, from Cooyon’s Cajun Cooking, his French Quarter restaurant, and currently as Rick Cajun, has had quite a ride. He introduced Singapore to the delights of Cajun cooking. He’s made friends in high and low places. He’s been asked for autographs on the streets of New Orleans, and he’s now ‘semi-retired’, making videos of the good Cajun cooking he has loved all his life. 

He got his start in a small Iberia Parish town, among good family cooks. “I’ve been cooking since I was 6 years old. My mother, Margaret ‘Ticker’ Deare had me sous cheffing for her. My favorite thing to make back then (and still today) was Pain Perdu, or lost bread,”’ said Deare. “It was just so rich, like a slice of bread pudding. That’s why when I started making my videos, I knew Pain Perdu would have to be one of the first recipes I featured.”

“My mother had big parties, everyone from the political world would come to the house. She’d make crawfish bisque, stuffing as many as 1,000 heads, and crawfish etouffee, that she’d serve in those little puff pastries from Poupart’s Bakery in Lafayette,” he said.

“I traveled the world doing what I do,” he said. “I went to Singapore, and watched the chefs prepare their native dishes. I wound up showing them how to cook Cajun. So that’s how Cajun cooking got to Singapore.”

Years in New Orleans were cherished, his restaurant in the Quarter thriving. “I lived near Emeril’s (chef Emeril Lagasse) NOLA restaurant. His upstairs balcony was right next to my apartment balcony. We got to be friends.” 

While in the Big Easy, Rick also rubbed elbows with Chef Paul Prudhomme. “I remember seeing him in his scooter. He’d say, ‘hey, do you know what ‘cooyon’ means?’ I had the restaurant at the time, and I dressed as the character, so everyone knew me as Cooyon. I said, ‘of course, I am one! That made him laugh.”

His current venture is based out of Seabrook, Texas, south of Houston. He’s produced several videos demonstrating Cajun dishes, from fried ribs to eggplant pirogue, chicken fricassee to yes, pain perdu. The day he talked to this reporter, he was experimenting with smoking sirloin beef jerky. “There’s a place in Thibodaux, Bourgeois, they do some awesome beef jerky,” he said. “I’m trying to see if I can get close to their creation, but of course, I’m putting my own Rick Cajun spin on it.” 

Look for Rick Cajun online: his Facebook group as well as his YouTube channel is A Cajun in Texas. Join the group, watch the videos. Then you can make some awesome Pain Perdu, Chicken Fricassee, or how about that beef jerky?