Runaway Dish: culinary journal vol. 1 by Runaway Dish

Runaway Dish

culinary journal vol. 1

TABLE OF CONTENTS BECAUSE IT MATTERS Louisiana Folk Roots Page 4 THE MAIN EVENT Runaway Dish Vol. 1 Modernist South Page 6 DINER DISH George Graham Page 32 THINGS WE LOVE! Summer 2013 Page 36

ABOUT RUNAWAY DISH Runaway Dish is a private, not-for-profit organization with a mission to promote the creative culinary talents and resources that thrive in South Louisiana while raising funds for various local charities. www.runawaydish.org

EAT HERE PT. 1 Social Southern Table + Bar Page 38 CHEF WISDOM PT. 1 Marc Krampe Page 48 FARM DIARIES Isle Navarre Farms, Scott LA Page 52

words by Katie Culbert pictures by Denny Culbert designed and edited by K + D

KNOCK ONE BACK Drinks with Brass Bed and Carbon Poppies Page 56

Runaway Dish Vol. 1 underwritten by kiki. www.shopkikionline.com

EAT HERE PT. 2 The French Press Page 60 CHEF WISDOM PT. 2 Justin Girouard Page 72

twitter: @runaway_dish instagram: @dennyculbert or @kfray facebook: www.facebook.com/runawaydishdinners email: dcphoto@dennyculbert.com or kate@shopkikionline.com

BASED IN LAFAYETTE, LOUISIANA 2

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MARKET FOLKS July 20, 2013 Page 76 A POEM BY SHOME Down In Those Fields of Sugar and Cane Page 80

HEY Y’ALL We Love Magazines

From the time we met, we found ourselves having endless conversations about restaurants, chefs, gardens, cookbooks, and all things food. It’s not necessarily the actual food that we constantly talk about (although we do a lot of that too), it’s why we like certain places or new things chefs are doing or what makes going out to dinner and cooking so enjoyable. At some point these endless conversations turned into actual ideas.....lots of ideas. We knew that we wanted to do something that would help build a sense of camaraderie in the Lafayette culinary community. We realized what sets so many major food cities apart is their strong sense of chef collaboration and a lot less chef isolation and competition. And goodness....we are bursting with talent down here. We immediately thought: “These chefs need to come together. These chefs need to be seen and do crazy stuff. These chefs need a voice.’’ At the same time, Rick and Kiki (Katie’s parents) mentioned starting a non-profit and hosting charity dinners. And so the endless conversations continued. Then, this past October, we went to Oxford, MS for the Southern Foodways Alliance’s annual symposium. The SFA is an amazing organization rooted in preserving southern food culture. Denny spent the last two years documenting barbecue culture in the Carolinas for the SFA, so naturally, we became members. If you are a food enthusiast at all, this four day weekend is like an out-of-body experience. Everyone there is someone you would want to hang out with for at least a weekend.... chefs, writers, farmers, beer makers, food purveyors, photographers, and bloggers. And of course the meals were incredible. One in particular that stands out was a sit-down, 10-course, all vegetarian lunch in an art gallery for 400 people. Everything from the beautifully printed paper on the tables to the tiny jars of pimento cheese to the menu descriptions was impeccable. At the end, everyone in the room gave Chef Ashley Christensen

a standing ovation and half of them cried. We got back from Oxford and we knew we wanted to do THAT. So we talked to Rick and Kiki some more and took a little trip up to Asheville for a monthly charity dinner called Blind Pig, where Chef Justin Girouard of The French Press was cooking. Then we started meeting with Marc Krampe and Justin and Margaret Girouard. Five weeks later we somehow pulled off our first Runaway Dish dinner. That first dinner went so well.....so overwhelmingly better than we could have ever hoped for...we knew we were heading in the right direction. Of course, the chefs and their food are the stars. But then there’s everything else that is just as important. It’s the venue, it’s the farmers, it’s the servers, it’s the band, it’s the guests, it’s the timing. And when we added all of these parts up and put them together, something magical happened. It gave us goosebumps. Weeks after the dinner, we still had goosebumps. We thought where can we tell people about all these different parts that made the dinner so successful? Facebook? A letter? An email? Nah, no, not really. Then one night we are sitting among stacks of the brand new issues of Lucky Peach and Bon Appetit and Garden & Gun and Kinfolk and Gather and Modern Farmer, and we thought.... wait a minute.... WE LOVE MAGAZINES. WE SHOULD MAKE A MAGAZINE. So we had food and drinks with our chefs at their restaurants and spent a morning with the non-profit and an afternoon with the farmers and grabbed a drink with the band. We took a lot of pictures. We recorded a lot of interviews. We taught ourselves a lot about margins and fonts and white space and Indesign. We agonized for hours on how we wanted our page numbers to look or if certain photographs should have borders or be full-bleed. We debated over the use of curse words and double spacing after periods. Halfway through, we realized that making our little magazine was going to be a lot of work...but at that point, there was no turning back. And now at 3am with less than 12 hours to get this thing off to the printer so we can have it ready in time for our next dinner, we realized that we learned something very valuable....everyone has an opinion about food, everyone wants to talk about food, and everyone gets excited about food. Food is the best way to learn about a community. And well, we think that’s pretty cool. - Katie & Denny August 2013

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Louisiana Folk Roots Key Players Marsha Engelbrecht - Assistant Director

Belle Landry LeBlanc - Administrative Coordinator

Todd Mouton - Executive Director

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BECAUSE IT MATTERS LOUISIANA FOLK ROOTS

BECAUSE Cajun musician and cultural activist Christine Balfa was inspired by her late father’s hopes and dreams of sharing our unique cultures with young and old here at home. BECAUSE today, fiddler, bandleader, and cultural ambassador Dewey Balfa’s legacy continues to grow. BECAUSE Louisiana Folk Roots honors the oral and aural traditions of “learning at the masters’ knees,” following family and community processes that have been in place for centuries. BECAUSE participants in Louisiana Folk Roots’ programs including the annual Dewey Balfa Cajun and Creole Heritage Week are offered opportunities to learn directly from some of the most respected Cajun and Creole musicians, culture-bearers, scholars and folklorists in the world, in the process uniting different generations for cultural sharing. BECAUSE this year’s Louisiana Folk Roots Cajun & Creole Summer Camp for Kids brought together 60 young people from as far away as California to learn from outstanding artists and educators recognized by their peers, students, and the Grammy awards. BECAUSE bringing our culinary, musical, and dance art forms together with our region’s histories and languages strengthens all of these vital cultural expressions. BECAUSE Louisiana Folk Roots strives to create new and unique frameworks for perpetuating Louisiana’s cultural heritage right here at home, and will launch a new festival, ROOTSTOCK, on Saturday, Nov. 9, 2013 in Lafayette. BECAUSE our heritage offers us unique insight into the many possibilities of our futures. BECAUSE there is no music without musicians, no dance without dancers, and no food without cooks. Louisiana Folk Roots’ mission is “to nurture, share, and perpetuate Louisiana’s traditional cultural expressions with an emphasis on our Cajun and Creole heritage through performances and related educational activities.” They celebrate and promote Louisiana culture at the source. It’s a lot about the music and a lot about the dancing and a lot about the food. It’s a concept close to our hearts because it mimics the very reasons we started Runaway Dish. So naturally, spotlighting and raising funds for Louisiana Folk Roots at our first dinner made sense. And it’s safe to say that all parties involved could not have been happier

with the outcome. The inaugural Runaway Dish dinner benefitted one of our region’s most impressive and essential programs for young artists: Louisiana Folk Roots’ annual Cajun & Creole Summer Camp for Kids. With the tickets sales from the dinner, we supported this top-notch camp’s intensive, immersive cultural learning activities which included providing partial scholarships to several young musicians. To learn more about this incredible camp for kids and everything else Louisiana Folk Roots has to offer, visit www.lafolkroots.org.m Runaway Dish

Runaway Dish vol. 1 MODERNIST SOUTH Benefitting Louisiana Folk Roots April 23, 2013 200 Jefferson Street Downtown Lafayette

The inaugural Runaway Dish dinner took place in one of our favorite spaces in downtown Lafayette. Previously occupied by David Courville Architecture, the space became vacant just when we started looking for our first dinner location. Lucky for us, our good friend Greg Walls happened to own the building. Greg also happens to own one of the best little lunch spots in town, Johnson’s Boucaniere. From Korean BBQ sandwiches to hot boudin to smoked turkey necks (a gumbo’s best friend), we get everything at Johnson’s. Obviously, Greg liked our concept and couldn’t have been more helpful every step along the way. We already knew that Justin and Marc were going to take the chef reins first. As two of our close friends, we had all been talking about doing something like this for nearly a year now. We also knew we wanted to keep the first dinner very Southern while still maintaining a sense of adventure. Thus, Modernist South was born.m

Chefs

Justin Girouard of The French Press Marc Krampe of Social Southern Table + Bar

Pastry Chef

Jennifer Hughes (Charley G’s)

Barteder Eli Touchet (Social Southern + Bar)

Kitchen Crew

Ed Alleyn (Charley G’s) Jacob Belloni (The French Press) Tyler Braun (Social Southern Table + Bar) Steve Doucet (The French Press) Mike Field (Charley G’s) Jonathan Girouard (The French Press) Kelsey Leger (The French Press) Amy Salsman (Social Southern Table + Bar)

Expeditor

Margaret Girouard

Servers

Kellie Dore (Charley G’s) Mallory Fontenot (Social Southern Table + Bar) Billy Hobbs (Social Southern Table + Bar) George King (The French Press) Stephen Miller (The French Press) Yetta Russell (The French Press)

Music

Carbon Poppies + Brass Bed

table settings by Kiki Frayard

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limited edition Mardi Gras photographs by Denny Culbert. sales benefitted Louisiana Folk Roots.

framed by Express Frames

dishes and furniture supplied by Event Rental. they even set up a giant tent for our temporary kitchen

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chef Justin going over the nightâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s menu. g

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slurp, slurp, slurp

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Pecan King Jady Regard

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spicy lamb merguez

crispy lamb sweetbreads

hay roasted lamb “tenderloin”

foie gras croquettes with pepper jelly and onion sprouts

coconut water compressed pineapple

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the pretty stuff in the ham salad is Mary Mary Marketâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s handiwork.

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cheese balloon and aged ham.

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Margaret Girouard, wife of chef Justin, was the VIP of the evening. thanks to her the dinner was paced perfectly.

Tolosa rosĂŠ

the man behind the Blue Moon Saloon Mark Falgout.

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pastry chef Amy Salsman of Social Southern Table & Bar

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crawfish foam!

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Charley G’s pastry Jennifer Hughes stealing the show. Chef Marc Krampe called her dish “sexy as hell.”

f chef

at one point, Allison sang the eveningâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s menu. it was pretty good... and vulgar.

building owner Greg Walls - architect, smoked meat guru, and mean drummer

Troy Primeaux hot pepper evil genius

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we crafted these plates with our own bare hands. the slate came from an actual elementary school blackboard.

DINER DISH

George Graham When we first discussed the idea of hosting these Runaway Dish dinners, George was at the top of the list of people we wanted to invite. He’s one of those movers and shakers who has had his hand in Acadiana’s culinary world for decades. He’s been a partner in restaurants. He knows all the chefs, farmers, and good places to eat in town. And he’s an avid cook.....and a very good one. So good, in fact, that he was runnerup in a major national burger cook off that aired on The Food Network. His home kitchen borderlines on professional status with two incredible spaces for cooking and entertaining indoors and outdoors as well as an impressive hidden prep area for more washing, chopping, and plating. This year he launched a fabulous new food blog called Acadiana Table. Along with a weekly recipe, George elaborates with wellwritten enthusiasm on the origin of certain dishes, where to find the best produce, and hidden restaurant gems. It’s his love song to all things Southern and delicious.

photo by Denny Culbert illustration by Katie Culbert Runaway Dish

Bottoms Up Tomato & Sausage Pie with Warm Roquefort Sauce

Recipe by George Graham - adapted from www.AcadianaTable.com Photography by Denny Culbert Prep time: 35 minutes Cooking time: 25 minutes Serves: 4

Tip: Fresh herbs are crucial here so use what you have available. Thyme, parsley, oregano and even fresh mint can sub for this recipe. Mild Italian sausage will work just as well. But do not, I repeat, do not use inferior tomatoes as only the freshest and ripest are worthy of this dish. 1 package frozen puff pastry sheets 1 1/2 cups bulk Cajun green onion sausage, crumbled 1 medium onion, sliced thin 1 cup fennel bulb, sliced thin 1 tablespoon fresh rosemary 1 tablespoon garlic, minced 1 tablespoon extra virgin olive oil 2 large or 5 small, ripe Creole (or farmers market) tomatoes, sliced Kosher salt Freshly ground black pepper 1 cup basil leaves, stems removed 1/2 cup Parmigiano Reggiano, finely grated 1 cup Roquefort blue cheese 1/2 cup half and half 1/2 cup green onion tops, diced

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- Preheat the oven to 400 degrees. Remove the puff pastry from the freezer and thaw in the refrigerator. - In a round cast iron skillet on medium heat, add the bulk sausage. Sauté until brown, being careful to break it up into small chunks. Remove and drain on paper towel. - Pour off the grease and add the onions and fennel to the skillet. Sauté on medium heat until they start to brown and then add the rosemary and garlic. Continue cooking on low until all is combined. Remove to a platter and keep warm. - In the same skillet with the heat off, add the olive oil and spread around the pan. Place the sliced rounds of tomato on the bottom of the skillet in a circular pattern overlapping slightly. Continue until the bottom is covered with one layer of tomatoes. Sprinkle with salt and pepper. - Add the basil leaves and place evenly around the tomatoes. Spread the sausage pieces evenly on top of the basil and tomatoes and then add the onion and fennel mixture, spreading evenly. - Roll out the puff pastry on a cutting board, joining the pieces together and being careful to smooth out the seams. Place the large piece of puff pastry over the round skillet and push the edges in to fit the mixture. Trim the edges so that it fits evenly, crimping in the sides. - On the stovetop, turn the heat on medium and cook the tomato mixture for 5 minutes. Place the entire pan in the oven and continue baking until the pastry turns golden brown, about 20-25 minutes. Remove from the oven, sprinkle the pastry evenly with grated parmesan cheese and let cool for 10 minutes. - Meanwhile, heat the half and half in a saucepan on low heat. Crumble the blue cheese into the pot and stir on simmer until the cheese begins to melt. Remove the cheese sauce to the side and keep warm. - Run a knife around the edges of the skillet dislodging the puff pastry from the edges of the cast iron pan. Place a large round serving platter over the top of the skillet and invert quickly. The tomato pie should come out easily. - Slice in wedges and pour over the blue cheese sauce. Sprinkle with the diced green onion tops. Serve with slightly chilled Pinot noir.m

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SPROUTED SALAD IN A JAR Since the beginning of the farmers’ market at the horse farm, I’ve been buying a jar of the most magical sprouted salad from Mary Patout - the guru of all things sprout related. My favorite is a mason jar of sprouts layered between chunks of tofu, miso dressing, and shiso pesto, but I’ll take whatever Mary happens to whip up that week. (follow Mary on Instagram @marymarymarkets and catch her at the Lafayette Farmers and Artisans Market at the Horse Farm every Saturday)

BIG APPETITES It’s hard to describe how happy Christopher Boffoli’s art makes us. He’s created the perfect fantasy world for adults…..especially adults who are really into food. His book, Big Appetites, is always within an arm’s reach. (www.bigappetites.net) 36

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LITTLE LADLES If Denny was Harry Potter, he wouldn’t have a wand……he would have a little ladle. It’s his tasting, scooping, and plating sidekick.

Rosé is all we want to drink in the summertime. Especially when paired with a big block of manchego cheese and Spanish chorizo. (Phillipe’s Wine Cellar, 3809 Ambassador Caffery Parkway, 337.991.9794)

GOOD EGGS NOLA

THINGS WE LOVE!

Good Eggs began in San Francisco earlier this year and now our friends Tess Monaghan and Simone Reggie have spearheaded the New Orleans leg of this amazing organization. It’s basically an online farmers market connecting farmers and artisans directly to the end user. They have all of the good stuff.....produce, coffee, baked goods, pasta, meat, seafood, yogurt.....you name it. For now, delivery is only available in New Orleans, but we believe the concept is ripe for expansion. Get online and schedule a pick up next time you are in the city. (www.goodeggs.com/nola)

FOOL MAGAZINE We always gravitate to food-related magazines, but with a Swedish husband-and-wife editorial team, we naturally fell in love with FOOL. It’s edgy and beautiful and full of content that takes you beyond traditional food-related journalism. Oh and the font usage is brilliant. (www.fool.se)

The Momofuku Milk Bar Cookbook is a heck of a book that led us to discover the wonders of Pistachio Paste. Order three cans at least and stock your pantry. Your pie crust will never be the same! (www.amazon.com) Runaway Dish

SOCIAL SOUTHERN TABLE & BAR 3901 Johnston Street Mid City Lafayette

Founded 2013 Executive Chef: Marc Krampe Partners: Charlie Goodson, Jody Ferguson, Marc Krampe

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chef MARC KRAMPE Age 31 Wednesday, July 10, 2013 2pm

Interview by Katie Culbert Photography by Denny Culbert After a long lunch, we sat at a corner booth inside Social and talked to Marc about living in Austin, growing up in a McDonald’s family, and the power that is Charlie Goodson.

Most of my kids will eat anything. They go through phases. Maddy likes to eat weird stuff just because it’s weird…..because I eat it. Ashlyn, she loves chicken feet. When we go to a Dim Sum restaurant, she will get two orders.....like a pound of chicken feet. I try to get my kids to eat fearlessly. We didn’t

give them too much baby food. Once they could chew, we would go to Thai restaurants and give them curry with tofu. We would go to Ethiopian restaurants or Korean restaurants. In other countries, they’re not feeding their kids baby food. Babies eat what their parents eat or a blended up version. We started giving them choices at an early age. So I think that’s why they will try everything.

All my memories are tied to food. I remember eating escargot when I was little. That sticks out in my mind for some reason. I loved it. I always ate weird stuff. I was a good eater. I ate a lot. I ate a lot of McDonald’s too, but it was free and that’s why. And I could show up to parties with two bags of McDonald’s and get free beer in high school. My dad used to cook when I was little. He would make carbonara pasta and stroganoff because he’s German. My grandmother was French and Native American so she cooked a lot of French dishes…..a lot of braised stuff. People have trouble with the proper use of salt. A really cool ingredient that I love that can also be a main protein or main dish is uni or sea urchin. You can make sauces with it. You can cure it. I haven’t seen it here, but I would love to get it. You can make the most amazing butter sauce for pasta with uni. It tastes like the ocean. Charlie Goodson has this wealth of knowledge from being in the industry so long. You can never stop learning from him. Everything he does, the way

he thinks about the numbers, the way he treats his people. At Charley G’s, it’s like a family over there. People love to work there. The whole experience is great because of Charlie.

I remember going to Charley G’s when I was little, and I would see Charlie walking around in a suit. I would tell my dad I want to be the guy who walks around in the suit in restaurants when I’m older. Charlie eats more than me. He eats like a

teenager. He ate the brick chicken today for lunch. Other days he will get the burger. When we went to Austin to research gastropubs and my vision of Social, we would go to 8 restaurants in a day and he’d go to town the whole time. The next morning he would get up, run, exercise, shower, and be in the lobby drinking coffee. I would just be getting up and still hurting from the night before.

I’ve been to cities all over the country and I’ve

loved them all, but there is something about Austin that made me feel like I was home. I like the way people treat each other in Austin. Very liberal over there, which doesn’t fly in a lot of Southern areas. It’s weird. Austin is its own little island.

I didn’t realize I wanted to cook at first. I was

just working in restaurants while I was in college. I slowly realized I was good at it, and I hated college, so I said screw it. I dropped out and went to culinary school. I figured I’m already doing it so I might as well make a living out of it.

I read a lot of chef blogs and Lucky Peach and cookbooks and I get 20 emails a day just about chef stuff. I subscribe to blogs from different cities like Los Angeles and New York and all over the place so I can see what other parts of the country are doing. I try to figure out how I can pull that off here or how I can make it work so people will be receptive to it.

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I met my wife Jennifer a year after I moved to Austin. The first time we met, I had a suit on. I was looking good. I was 19. She was 22 at the time. The next time I saw her, I asked her out on a date. I took her out to a concert. She thought I was 30. If farmers bring stuff to my back door, I buy it. I’ll use it for specials. I try to use as much possible. When we come out with a new menu, I just start

testing. I’m constantly doing that. That’s why I’m glad I have Bill Schwanz, because I wouldn’t know

what to do without him. He runs the kitchen for me and does an awesome job. He’s the backbone back there.

There was a period where I tried to get out of

the restaurant scene. My first job ever was washing dishes and all I knew was restaurants. I needed to try something different. I started working for AT&T Wireless. I thought....man, they make twice as much as I do an hour and sit on their asses all day...I’m going to try that out. It sucked. Yeah,

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after my stint in the regular world, I went back to cooking.

When I moved back here, I was managing McDonalds just to pay the bills. And I did learn a lot as far as managing people, food costs, and systems. There’s great food all over the place now. I love finding those little hole in the wall places that no one knows about.

If I could go anywhere and have a meal right

now, I would go to Japan and find a little ramen shop and I have a nice, traditional bowl of ramen. There’s something about noodles and beautifully made broth. A beautiful ramen dish makes you smile. I love Japanese culture for the pride they take in what they do. I love children’s food. There’s nothing better than PB & J and milk. Restaurant life is great. I love the people. I love the constant, ever evolving environment that it is.m

recipe and illustration by Marc Krampe

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FARM DIARIES

Isle Navarre Farms - Scott, La. In 2003, Tommy and Gabrielle Bodin got a new border collie. With hopes of taking her to the herding trials, they bought their first five sheep. The sheep were intended to work the dog. Now, ten years later, they have over 80 sheep and the collie spends most of her days in the a/c while Tommy and Gabrielle are the ones getting worked. And they love it. They absolutely love it. Their enthusiasm and the joy in their eyes and the love in their hearts for the sheep and for each other is evident within the first ten minutes of meeting them. It’s clear they have something special. The 23 acre farm in Scott, LA where Gabrielle’s dad originally raised Charolais cattle is a magical slice of South Louisiana heaven. The biggest oak tree on the Acadiana Live Oak Society’s register sits right next to their house. It’s stunning. And whether it’s a herd of new baby lambs or one of their two 140 pound sheep guarding dogs, you can always find an animal beneath it. Further down the way is the most beautifully made and most solidly built barn. Pure cypress, naturally. It has withstood all the hurricanes and looks as new as the day Gabrielle’s dad built it

some 50 years ago. As people get more in touch with their food, Isle Navarre Farms could not be more vital to that movement. Tommy and Gabrielle admit that they did not plan to be a part of that wave. What started as just a few sheep that they would occasionally sell for meat to their friends and folks that would pull in off the road quickly escalated into a profitable, viable business. Now they are proud members of the regional hair sheep guild - the SouthCentral Katahdin Hair Sheep Association and the international version - Katahdin Hair Sheep International. Last year they hosted the regional group’s meeting on their farm. And Gabrielle recently went back to school for a degree in animal science. They clearly believe in education and are constantly work to improve their practices and share their knowledge. It’s safe to say the Bodin’s are extremely dedicated to their flock. This is evident to anyone who visits the farm or dines in a restaurant serving their lamb. Their attention to detail and respect for their animals translates in every way.

text by Katie Culbert - photograpy by Denny Culbert

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A SHEPARD’S EXPERIENCE By Tommy & Gabrielle Bodin

Lambing season is a special time of year - time to get to know and admire new little babies, and time to

work until you can’t go anymore. Honestly, the days vary greatly. Sometimes we’re up half the night, maybe with a difficult birth (although these animals have few birthing problems) or taking care of a weak lamb. And sometimes things go much more smoothly. As we have been doing this for the last 10 years, we have worked to continually improve our genetics, and in addition to selling meat animals, we also sell registered and commercial breeding stock. It is a lot of hard work, but with many benefits. The babies are so beautiful. There’s nothing more fun than watching them when they start to “lampede” they run around together like a school of fish. And the sheep are so calming to be around. They truly are therapeutic. to learn more visit the Bodin’s website www.louisianasheep.net

7:00a.m. First thought

in my mind: I wonder if there are any new babies?! Get dressed (layer up if it’s cold) and check the pasture. Well, those two mammas we’ve been thinking were close for the last week had their babies! Great! And it looks like the new mammas are taking care of their babies. The babies are cleaned up and nursing - just what we always like to see. Will need to prepare a kennel, where we keep new mammas and their babies for the first 2 - 3 days. That way we know the babies are nursing well, and everyone is healthy and well-bonded. In this case, there are no problems that I see and the weather is nice (but

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a little chilly since it’s February), so I can come back and get them later.

some energy! Time for coffee and a bite to eat!

7:15a.m. Get to the

9:00a.m. So much

kennels and check on the ewes and lambs that spent the night in there. Feed them a corn-based concentrate and some alfalfa, give fresh water, clean their kennels, change the wood shavings we use as bedding. If there are any lambs not nursing well, now is the time to address it by trying to get them to nurse on their mother or supplementing them with a bottle. This can be time consuming, especially if the lamb is not inclined to nurse.

8:30a.m. OK, that burned

left to do! I go out to get the lambs, opening gates along the way so we can keep the momentum going so the mom will hopefully follows her lambs as they’re carried in to the kennel. The first ewe follows well as I try to carry the lambs at about head height so she can see them. The second ewe is a different story: she starts and stops, running back to find her lambs. It takes a while, but

we finally make it into the kennel! Most of the ewes get pretty attached to their kennels and feel safe in them after they adjust to it the first time. I put the new mammas some feed, alfalfa, and water and leave them alone for a while.

10:00a.m. Time to

go out and feed everyone else...the ewes with babies who have already graduated from the kennels, the expectant mammas, any unbred yearling ewes, breeding rams, and yearling rams all get either

hay and/or corn or a corn-based concentrate during the winter. The rams and yearling animals don’t need the level of nutrition that the expectant ewes do, so they get less. The expectant ewes also get a protein tub.

11:30a.m. Lunch break! Sit down for a little while. Yeah! 1:00p.m. The new lambs should be settled in, so it’s time to “check them in.” Each lamb is recorded in a notebook, weighed, given some probiotic and a vitamin supplement, and sprayed in the navel with iodine. The mother gets probiotic, a vitamin supplement,

and some oxytocin to help her milk to come down and her uterus to finish cleaning out.

2:00p.m. Time to run

errands, pick up supplies, etc.

5:00p.m. Start the evening feedings, take care of any more lambs born, and keep an eye on any suspicious looking ewes. Squeeze in supper when you can!

9:00p.m. Someone

decides to lamb at night. Bring them in when they’re done and set them up!

11:00p.m. Finally, we can get to bed so we can see what tomorrow holds!m

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Meet Christiaan Mader, Peter DeHart, Allison Bohl DeHart, and Jonny Campos - the four individuals that make up the groups Brass Bed and Carbon Poppies. Brass Bed came first with Christian, Peter, and Jonny. Then much later, Peter and Jonny started a little band called Carbon Poppies with Allison. But lets not forget that somewhere in the middle, Allison recorded with Brass Bed for their On Nilsson album (a personal favorite). Oh and Peter and Allison were married this past year. So the four have become this music family that you canâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t really define. They are this crazy creative, collaborative, quirky, and amazingly talented force. And they are just as entertaining off stage as they are on stage. I asked them where they would like to meet for drinks to chat, and they chose Pamplona.

KNOCK ONE BACK

DRINKS WITH CARBON POPPIES & BRASS BED

ON FOOD MEMORIES ALLISON: Fried chicken and potatoes. I grew up in Bossier City and I was very picky. I didn’t really eat much. We pretty much ate out at every meal. And then when I moved here, I was exposed to all kinds of food. And now I eat everything but pickles.

JONNY: My dad was a great cook and he was from Columbia, South America so he brought a lot of weirder things to the table. Like I didn’t know plantains were called plantains until I was 12, I thought they were just always called plataños. I feel like I had everything growing up.

CHRISTIAAN: I didn’t realize growing up that I was eating really good food until I was older and I left. My mom cooked a lot of Acadian style dishes like pork roasts, awesome stuffed breads, gumbo, and red beans and rice. Growing up in South Louisiana, that’s just food. I didn’t think there was anything particularly unique about it until I went to Atlanta for college, and I was like this food is terrible. Then I’d go home and my mom would feed me and I would be like oh, okay, now I get it.

ON BAND DYNAMICS ALLISON: Brass Bed is Christiaan, Peter, and Jonny, and I have helped out since I’ve met Peter in their aesthetic and their look and that kind of stuff. And I played with Brass Bed on the Nilsson recordings. So a lot of the lines start to blur as far as collaborative projects between Brass Bed and Carbon Poppies. In my opinion, Brass Bed is the main goal because it’s their main passions. And with Carbon Poppies, the whole point is because it’s fun and simplified and not stressful. And I think keeping it as that way is

important. As soon as you start playing music as an adult, it can turn into one of those “what am I doing with my life” moments because you make very little money and you have to supplement it. So to me it’s like an added fun to your adulthood so you don’t hate your life. Oh and people love comparing the two bands. It’s hilarious. I guess people think you should commit to one thing and do it well, but there’s really not any fun in that.

ON KRVS CHRISTIAAN: We’ve had the fortune of trying out many, many radio stations across the country We can say with a lot of certainty that KRVS is among the best facilities in the United States. Their actual live recording set up is amazing. 58

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ON STAYING OCCUPIED ON THE ROAD PETER: There’s the Snack Challenges... In Austin, we were recording the last Brass Bed album and we stopped at a convenience store to get beer and I saw that Pringles had come out with a blooming onion special edition flavor. And I thought it was so ridiculous because it was not only the blooming onion, but it was the blooming onion dipped in that blooming onion sauce.....and that was the flavor of the chip! And I thought could this flavor be so good that you would know it if you didn’t know what it was? So I bought them and tested the rest of the band. That’s how it started. Now it’s escalated. Now we are just trying to out do each other. CHRISTIAAN: There’s the BLT chip, but it mostly just taste like Mayonnaise. JONNY: We want to tour Japan so bad just for the chips.

illustrations by Peter DeHart

CHECK IT OUT!

Stream the Carbon Poppies’ recent live performance in the KRVS studios. Go to krvs.org and click on Podcasts and then click on Diamond Sea!

ON TIPPING ALLISON: The food industry is very much made of musicians so when you are tipping, you should consider that. You usually are tipping a creative person. ON COMING HOME FROM TOUR JONNY: I miss Johnson’s the most. And of course Old Tyme and Judice Inn CHRISTIAAN: I don’t eat anything bad for me for a while. The first thing I do is just start cooking. Lately, I’ve been roasting pork or chicken thighs. Usually very basic stuff.....easy on the stomach. Lizzy and I will go to the farmers market and just eat vegetables. Like I had rapini for the first time. And then of course I have to go to all of the standbys like Judice Inn. That’s still my favorite restaurant. That’s still my favorite thing pretty much in the world. m Runaway Dish

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THE FRENCH PRESS 214 E. Vermilion Street Downtown Lafayette

Founded 2008 Owners Justin and Margaret Girouard

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chef Justin Girouard Age 32 Saturday, July 20, 2013 10:45pm

Interview by Katie Culbert Photography by Denny Culbert After dinner at The French Press bar on a Saturday night in July, we sat outside the restaurant with Justin and discussed his culinary upbringing and the pros and cons of being a chef/ owner over martinis and beer.

I don’t cook at home enough because of the demands of the business. It’s a very special night for my kids and my wife and me to all sit down to dinner. When I can go shopping at four o’clock, plan a meal, casually cook and hang out with my kids, listen to music, and carry on a conversation with Margaret. It’s a pretty rare scenario to pop up, but when it does, we make the most of it and I’ll cook anything at all. Scarlett (age 4) will eat anything. Literally, anything. And, not only that, but she takes a liking to things that aren’t very common. Shrimp tails…. that’s her favorite thing. Chicken livers. She loves chicken livers. Anything we put in front of her she will eat. Violet (age 6) on the other hand, you generally have to convince her to eat stuff, but once she tastes it, she likes it. And then she remembers she likes it so from then on she’ll eat it. I mean they cheer about Brussels sprouts, you know. Frog legs were an ingredient that I never considered. Then I got exposed to some fresh ones from the Atchafalaya, and they won me over. It’s an amazing, delicate, beautiful meat. And from right down the road, you know. I mean, we can go gigging in the coulee by your house if you want.

I always have to have a good pair of tongs.

They have to be symmetrical. They can’t be bent out of shape. And the tips have to touch perfectly. If I don’t have that, I’m out of sorts. It’s a direct extension of your fingertips. Tongs are like my Edward Scissorhands.

Lately in the kitchen, we listen to a lot of Ween, a lot of Conway Twitty, and a lot of Frank Ocean. Bobby Charles too. Bobby Charles is like the soundtrack of The French Press. They are all great kitchen artists because their music is upbeat enough to not drag you down, but it’s also mellow enough to calm you a little bit…..so you can stay in a good rhythm.

My mom is a great cook, and she learned from her mom who learned from her mom and dad. They are all Cajun, so it’s all stewed stuff, roux, gumbo….regular Louisiana food. But my dad came from an Italian family, so my mom learned how to cook Italian food, and because she was such a good cook, she was just naturally able to cook great Italian food. I’ve got a soft spot for Italian food. Her chicken cacciatore is amazing. Her lasagna is great. Not to mention her rice and gravy. It’s just perfect. She set the bar pretty high as far as quality. So from a very early age, I could tell if someone was taking shortcuts or using bad ingredients. I didn’t know that was the problem, but I could tell that I didn’t like it as much as something cooked from scratch or fresh.

96% of everything I know, all of my technique, came from Stella!. I came from zero/nothing/point blank to running two restaurants in six years. I started out as a dishwasher. My friend, Chris Allen, was cooking over there and he asked me if I wanted to wash dishes for $50 cash because their dishwasher didn’t show up. That’s how I got the job. The chef asked me to come back the next day and I said, sure, this is fun. So the next day I’m cutting cherry tomatoes, and then the next day I’m peeling shrimp, and then the next day I’m doing both of those duties plus another duty and still doing the dishes. Two months later, I’m on the line. Eight months later, I was on the hot line. And then a year later, I was the sous chef. Until I got into a professional kitchen, I didn’t know why good food was good. And then I realized its because it takes a lot of work and effort and thought. A lot of people came through Stella! and just left

because it was too hard. But the beautiful thing about Stella! is the more you could do, the more Scott Boswell, the chef, would let you do. So it was up to you completely. Runaway Dish

The possibility of going to France kept me around for a couple years. I knew Scott had a connection there. The first serious conversation we ever had, he asked me “what are your plans, where are you going, what are you doing, do you like cooking?” And I asked him if he could send me to France one day, and he said he could make that happen. And that was hook, line, and sinker for me. I just really wanted to go cook in France and live in a different country. When I accepted the sous chef position, I said I’ll do this for 12 months and then you have to send me to France. And he agreed. Cooking in France is where the other 4% of my knowledge comes from. I was already the sous chef at Stella!. I had a pretty good understanding of how a kitchen should run from managing product to managing people to managing service. But when I got to France, it was a whole new ball game. A much bigger operation, a much more organized operation, and things were just more thought out. If you think about it, the French have been doing it centuries longer than Americans. I learned more about the mechanics of a kitchen as a whole than I did about actual food. I came back super confident, ready to be a leader... like in a different kind of way... like in an efficient, intuitive type of way.

go. What I need to do is figure out how to create that time for myself.

Working with my brother is like having a twin. I can say fragments of sentences and get my point across. Whereas with other people, you got to say paragraphs and paragraphs and then it still doesn’t come out right. And his ability is superb. It’s a natural born thing and he has it. I can tell him I want a salad and it needs to be a little tart and poppy and a little sweet... and he nails it. Better than I could. Better than my own head can transfer to my hands. He brings it to me and I’m like oh my god that’s amazing. And he’s only 23 years old. He’s so much more progressed than I was technically and conceptually at his age. When I talk to people and give

them the chance to come stage, I tell them this is a New Orleans style kitchen. First of all, it’s sink or swim. Secondly, no one is in here to babysit anybody. We will help you out if you need help, but the last thing we are going to do is babysit you. And thirdly, you progress at your own rate. Like if I never went from being you are a bad ass an executive chef to a chef/ owner. I was never in and you want to come in here and be better than a situation where I could just run the kitchen with your coworkers, than by all means do it. You will no one above me except the owner. That’s usually progress faster, you will be working with more the progression you go. I kind of went straight important positions in the kitchen, and you will from following and enforcing someone else’s orders make more money. I’m sticking to that because that’s to trying to do it all on my own. So there’s a big all I know. learning curve there. We recently had someone call about a position in Sometimes I wish that I had somebody that could our kitchen. She said the environment she is looking run all of the rest of the business and I could just for is a small, busy, understaffed kitchen. And I was focus on the kitchen. But I knew this is the way to like, oh my god, we are your dream come true.m

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recipe and illustration by Justin Girouard

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MARKET FOLKS... 7.20.2013

Lafayette Farmers & Artisans Market at The Horse Farm

Jack Troutman

Lafayette, Louisiana Mango Popsicle from Fruit Pops by Cindy

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Gwen Aucoin

Lafayette, Louisiana Strawberry Pie from Busy Bee Pies

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Down in those fields of sugar and cane, we stood in the bronze, bronze sun and

gold, we traced our fingers against the long green and closed our eyes, i don’t know what you wished for, but all i hoped for was you, and you are all i don’t know - what is real when you are not here, maybe one day i will find out, maybe one day i will pretend, maybe one day you will be as true as these stalks but for now, you are in my head and there is the sun and the raw leaves, and you and i and a glimpse of the spectacular please don’t leave my mind.

- Shome Dasgupta

For our first last page, we asked Shome to chose one of Denny’s photographs to write about. Shome is a dear friend and brilliant writer. He has a way with words like no one else we have ever met. Read more about his work at www.shomedome.com or follow him on Twitter @laughingyeti. His debut novel i am here And You Are Gone is currently available on www.amazon.com.

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