Heavenly Recipes

Story and Photos by Janet Marcel

Lawrence’s Banana Nut Bread

Lawrence Chatagnier

In this month’s Heavenly Recipes, Lawrence Chatagnier, editor and general manager of the Bayou Catholic magazine, shares his recipe for Banana Nut Bread, which he received from a neighbor in the early 1980s and has been using ever since. The neighbor brought his family some banana nut bread as a gift and the recipe was included on the card.

Lawrence says he learned to cook at his first job as a galley hand for Texaco almost 50 years ago. “Galley hands generally help clean the kitchen and help the cooks prepare meals. Occasionally when a cook would go on vacation, I would fill in for him,” he says.

Over the years, he has had a lot of practice cooking many different types of meals from main dishes to soups and stews, as well as venturing into baking. One of his favorite things to prepare is jambalaya. Lawrence says he enjoys preparing meals that he can share with his family members. He also enjoys grilling on the weekends.

Lawrence announced his retirement in this issue of Bayou Catholic after serving the diocese for over 35 years in different capacities, most memorably for our readers as the diocesan photographer for 30 of those years. He has also authored Heavenly Recipes since the first magazine was published in February 2012 … that’s 124 recipes!

Since one of Lawrence’s favorite pastimes is cooking, we thought it was appropriate to turn the tables on him by interviewing him for our Heavenly Recipes feature this month. a

Lawrence’s Banana Nut Bread

Ingredients:

1 stick margarine 1 cup sugar 2 eggs 1-1/2 cups flour 1 tsp. baking soda Dash of salt 3 ripe bananas 1/2 cup chopped walnuts

Directions:

Cream margarine, sugar and eggs. Add flour, baking soda and salt. Mash bananas and add to batter with chopped nuts. Pour into greased and floured loaf baking pan.

Bake for 55 minutes at 350 degrees. Check with knife in center; if knife is moist bake for 5 more minutes.

Enjoy!

When Lawrence first began the Heavenly Recipes feature, he says he mainly interviewed cooks and housekeepers in the church parishes, as well as a few priests. After exhausting those resources, he began interviewing the laity or people who were referred to him by either pastors or secretaries in the church parishes. Often these people cooked for various events in the church parishes.

“I had the opportunity to meet many wonderful faith-filled people during that time,” says Lawrence. “Heavenly Recipes became more than just people sharing their recipes with me. People were sharing their faith and life experiences ... both good experiences and challenges they may have been facing. Everyone has a story whether they think they do or not.”

Lawrence says he always enjoyed photography from a very young age. “I have always valued the integrity and the importance of a great photograph - in its technical aspect as well as for its ability to tell a story,” he says. “I always enjoy capturing a moment during an event. I like the idea of a photograph freezing a moment in time and letting you experience what the subject is experiencing at that moment.”

Lawrence says being the diocesan photographer has allowed him to meet thousands of people that he would not have met otherwise. “When our former editor Louis Aguirre and Bishop Sam Jacobs (third bishop of Houma-Thibodaux) decided to switch to a magazine format, I knew it would be a great medium for photos to illustrate and give an appealing support to our stories in the magazine because magazines are very visual. To be a little selfish it is always rewarding to see a photograph that you’re proud of in the publication or even on the cover. It has been an honor to document the happenings of the diocese for the past 30 years.” BC