Ebony Broadway, a flamboyant transplant from New Or-leens, found her life’s mission when she met business partner and culinary kindred spirit Tony Smalls on the farmers market circuit at Hillcrest, Ocean Beach and San Diego State University, to mention a few.
Smalls had been selling his homemade sweet potato pies, called cane patch pies. His large family farm in South Carolina had been growing the starchy, tuberous roots and baking the iconic treats since 1912. The region’s specialties, such as braised collard greens, baked mac and cheese and those scrumptious sweet potato pies nicely complemented the dishes emblematic of Broadway’s hometown, the Big Easy. We’re talking Louisiana delights blending Creole (a mix of French, Italian, Irish, Haitian and South African culinary influences), zippy Cajun (Acadian/French Canadian roots), soul food and seafood with a mother lode of sugar and spice and long-grain white rice.
About seven years ago, Broadway and Smalls were invited to the fledgling Liberty Public Market family at Liberty Station in Point Loma with their first brick-and-mortar eatery, named Cane Patch Kitchen, snagging a coveted space in the food hall focusing on her down-home creations.
This launched Broadway’s journey into her ancestry and cultural roots that began in a village in central Benin in West Africa — a maize and yam paradise and the birthplace of voodoo. There she honed her culinary skills with authentic styles of cooking as she delved deeper into her heritage in the French colony of her descendants.
Broadway also has incorporated “prosperity attraction” into her restaurant — giving and receiving light and love. “That’s what juju [the physical manifestation of incantation] is all about,” she said.
She holds family recipes close to the vest and lets only her well-trained family with certain vibrational energy (not on the moon cycle) prepare the menu items.
“It’s all about the energy,” she said. “We make beignets fresh off the fire from cottonseed oil to customer, complete with a bird’s-eye view of the chefs rolling out the dough seven days a week.”
Handmade beignets are as much a part of New Orleans cuisine as croissants are to and cannolis are to Italy. The airy, deep-fried dough squares generously dusted with powdered sugar melt in your mouth and recite a poem at the same time.
In Cane Patch’s open-air kitchen, guests can hear the sizzle of grilling protein of all manner, including the exotic alligator tail meat shipped directly from New Orleans that nicely tops a green salad or enlivens other traditional dishes. “It’s like chewy chicken or delicate calamari that’s lean and high in protein, good for a keto diet,” Broadway said.
The most popular menu item is the po’ boy sandwich. A 6-inch toasted French roll is loaded with shredded lettuce, pickles, tomatoes and choice of protein, including shrimp, gator, oyster, catfish, tilapia, chicken or hot link (andouille sausage), along with vegan options (jackfruit and soy sausage), and topped with a good kick from the creamy, spicy remoulade sauce (like a Louisiana-style tartar) prepared in-house.
Po’ boys can be enjoyed as a salad or in a basket with more side-dish choices than there are blooming magnolias in Louisiana, such as red beans and rice, golden potato salad with chopped dill pickles, collard greens dotted with applewood smoked bacon, Southern-style cabbage, green beans, candied yams and homestyle Creole mac and cheese.
The gumbo (Broadway’s favorite dish, reminiscent of her grandma’s recipe) is made West Africa-style — a tomato-based soup with shrimp, chicken, sausage, okra, special “warm heat” spices, along with the trinity (bell pepper, onion and celery).
There also are the jambalaya — a sassy rice dish mingling shrimp, sausage, chicken and big chunks of grilled bread — and thick-cut Swamp Fries tricked out with red beans and rice, cheese, lettuce, tomatoes, a pile of gator tail, shrimp or chicken (optional), and a drizzle of spicy homemade sauce.
For little appetites, the kids meal, including a junior po’ boy basket with three inches of French roll topped with protein and paired with fries and a beignet, would be plenty satisfying even for a big kid.
Weekends offer breakfast feasts like the Country Boy Platter — scrambled eggs, French toast, country potatoes and choice of meat, whether andouille sausage, bacon or alligator tail. Intrepid breakfast diners ordering chicken and waffles can swap out cluck for gator meat.
Or you can try the Soul Bowl with country potatoes smothered in creamy harmony corn grits and topped with eggs or cheese. And there’s the beignet breakfast sandwich, or breakfast po’ boy, featuring an andouille sausage and cheese omelet topped with remoulade sauce.
All menu items are made in-house from scratch, and Broadway tries to source locally when possible.
Customers can dine in the indoor seating area of Liberty Public Market or the outdoor patio space. Cane Patch Kitchen offers a military discount on Mondays, paying homage to Liberty Station’s former incarnation as the Naval Training Center.
Cane Patch Kitchen
Where: Liberty Public Market, Liberty Station, 2820 Historic Decatur Road, Point Loma
Hours: 11 a.m. to 8 p.m. Mondays through Fridays, 9 a.m. to 8 p.m. Saturdays and Sundays
Information: canepatchkitchensd.com, (619) 917-7846
Recipes
Sweet potato pie
(Yields 8 slices)
Ingredients:
• 2 cups baked or boiled sweet potatoes
• ½ cup evaporated milk
• ½ stick salted butter
• 1 tablespoon all-purpose flour
• 2 eggs
• ¾ cup brown sugar
• 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
• ½ teaspoon lemon extract
• 1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
• 1 teaspoon ground allspice
• ¼ cup of love juju (spiritual ingredient)
• Deep-dish pie crust
Instructions:
• Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Use a fork and poke holes in the pie crust before partially baking for 10-15 minutes until pale brown.
• Mash cooked sweet potatoes. Add butter to hot potatoes and stir until butter is melted.
• Add eggs, evaporated milk, vanilla and lemon extract to sweet potatoes. Mix sugar, flour, cinnamon and allspice and add to mixture.
• Stir in love juju as you speak your desires.
• Pour sweet potato mixture into partially baked pie crust and bake for 45-55 minutes.
• Take the pie out of oven when the center has a slight jiggle.
• Allow the pie to cool to fully set.
• Slice and serve.
Remoulade sauce
(Yields 1½ cups; serving size ¼ cup)
Ingredients:
• 1¼ cups mayonnaise
• 2½ tablespoons spicy brown mustard
• 1 tablespoon paprika (sweet or smoked)
• 1 tablespoon finely chopped fresh parsley
• 2 teaspoons prepared horseradish
• 2 teaspoons lemon juice
• 1 teaspoon Creole seasoning
• 1 teaspoon pickle juice (dill or sweet)
• 1 teaspoon hot sauce
• 1 clove garlic, grated
• Grind of black pepper
• 2 tablespoons of good luck juju (spiritual ingredient)
Instructions:
• In a medium bowl, whisk together all the ingredients. Taste, and adjust seasonings if needed.
• Ideally, cover and chill for at least an hour for the flavors and good luck juju to meld. Refrigerate any unused sauce in an airtight container for up to 4 days. It might loosen up a bit, so give it a quick stir before serving again.
• Use the sauce anytime you want to attract good luck and opportunity.
— Courtesy of Cane Patch Kitchen
