NOUVELLES DE VILLES

For Quick Energy

Lafayette Main Squeeze Juice Co. is opening is first Lafayette location as it continues to expand across Louisiana. Local couple, owners Carly and Derek Peterson, are bringing the New Orleansbased company’s nutritionist-designed offerings that include cold-pressed juices and smoothies, juice cleanse programs and wellness shots at the end of the year. Customers can place orders with a mobile app (Apple App Store and Google Play Store). Cool perk: Geofencing technology lets the store know when you arrive curbside or in-store for your order. Franchise opportunities: mainsqueezejuiceco.com/franchise.

FOR MORE NEWS BRIEFS VISIT ACADIANAPROFILE.COM A Fighter’s Rare Bourbon

LAFAYETTE The top-ranked UFC fighter and Lafayette native, Dustin Poirier, has launched a new craft bourbon, Rare Stash. His branding concept celebrates all those who aspire to the “live rare, be rare” lifestyle that is “unique to each person.” Rare Stash bourbon’s intense initial taste is balanced by notes of oak, caramel, vanilla, hazelnut and butterscotch. Now available at select retailers throughout Louisiana (therarestash.com).

LAFAYETTE

Saving Acadiana’s Animals

Bark in the Dark, one of Acadiana’s largest and most impactful fundraising events for animals, is April 7 in the Cajundome’s Festival Ballroom featuring an evening of entertainment, delectable cuisine by Chef Gilbert Decourt and opportunities to bid on exclusive auction items. Benefitting Acadiana Animal Aid, the region’s leader in animal rescue, sheltering and transport (development@ acadianaanimalaid.org; cajundome.com/events).

Ahoy Jean Lafitte Lookalikes

HOUMA The Keep Terrebonne Beautiful Pirates and Boots Festival is holding a celebration in conjunction with Keep Louisiana Beautiful Love the Boot Week April 23 at Houma Downtown Marina. Grab your best boots, cloak, eye patch, hook and earrings for the Jean Lafitte Lookalike contest and treasure hunt. Enjoy vendor booths, music, food and kids’ activities at the festive family fundraiser (houmatravel.com/events/ keep-terrebonne-beautifulpirates-boots-festival).

Gumbo Glory

New Iberia The World Championship Gumbo Cookoff was recently touted by CNN travel contributor Jen Rose Smith, who named Louisiana gumbo in her “20 of the World’s Best Soups” roundup while plugging the gumbos served at New Iberia’s annual foodie fest. It was the only American soup that made CNN’s international list (which included the now embattled Ukraine’s beloved borscht). The 32nd annual Gumbo Cookoff will be held October 8-9 in downtown New Iberia (iberiachamber.org/gumbocookoff).

FOR MORE NEWS BRIEFS VISIT ACADIANAPROFILE.COM Sushi Trail Expands

BATON ROUGE, LAFAYETTE Lafayette’s popular downtown sushi restaurant, Tsunami, is expanding to a second Baton Rouge location with outdoor seating, to be situated in a 4,000-square-foot space on the first floor of the Highland Development, corner of Bluebonnet (slated to open this summer). Tsunami’s original see-and-be-seen Baton Rouge location is situated on the top floor of the Shaw Center for the Arts (servingsushi.com).

ARNAUDVILLE

Boudin Flavored Beer

A new limited-release Cajun breakfast stout from Bayou Teche Brewing features Best Stop’s boudin, Steen’s cane syrup and Art’s coffee flavors. Cane syrup and boudin are added to the mash at the beginning, more boudin is added near the end of the boiling stage, and the beer is finished with coffee at the end of fermentation. The special brew (reminiscent of the iconic “seven-course” Cajun breakfast: a six-pack of beer and boudin) first debuted in 2019 featuring boudin from Russell’s Food Center (facebook.com/ bayoutechebrewing).

Sign Up Early

LAFAYETTE Ruffino’s new executive chef, Reid Henderson (a Louisiana Culinary Institute grad and former executive chef for Tsunami and the Seattle Seahawks) has dazzled guests with his Italianinspired fare at Ruffino’s in Lafayette and Baton Rouge since January. Henderson is helming The Ruffino’s Cooking Experience, a relaxed evening with chef instructions for a five-course meal enjoyed with wines. Themed monthly classes alternate between the two locations. (ruffinosrestaurant.com).

Seeing the Forest and the Trees

A horticulturist’s love of the land and hope for its future

By Jim Foret illustration by Sara Willia

Acadiana, I have loved you my entire life — your people, your music, your food — but mostly, I love the color of the land, the beautiful restful green of it all and the dense cool shade of your canopy.

Late in life, I found a labor of love teaching 20-year-olds at ULL. I so enjoy teaching your children Acadiana, watching them catch fire and burn with enthusiasm for life and their careers. This is the gift I give myself.

I’m the eldest of 10 children. I’m followed by seven sisters in a row then two brothers. As you can imagine, meals at my house were a big deal and it seemed then that Mom was always pregnant.

My childhood memories are of wading barefoot in the old soft-sided Coulee Mine, soaking up the natural world, making all those beautiful Gaia connections. I guess that young me required the escape of the quiet wood and adventure of exploring the Coulee’s riparian forest thickets.

The water was clearer then and the mine flooded less; that was before the development upstream. Then came the concrete coulee armor sending the rainwater racing to the Vermilion.

I remember Dad working with the evolving Louisiana nursery industry as a part of his teaching job with Southwestern Louisiana Institute (now University of Louisiana at Lafayette), functioning as a research scientist/advisor to these wonderful folks. He served a similar role with our local public gardens, on the islands, Avery and Jefferson, and Hodges Gardens in Many.

As a kid, I loved wandering with Dad, listening to his stories, taking in the rural scenery of the prairie terrace. The farms were much smaller then, many still divided by fenced, vegetated headlands and drains with lots of pasture and many of the old homes remaining in place, perhaps abandoned but they and their barns were still common in the landscape. I love these very Elmore Morgan-esque memories. French was frequently the language spoken as we moved about. Today, industrial agriculture and developers have eliminated most of that history by replacing the small family farm with modern farming’s big acreages, big equipment and precision leveling and more efficient water removal. This kind of farming coupled with developers paving over paradise meant fewer opportunities for rainwater to soak into the land, resulting in frequent flood events. “Progress.” I love my work preserving JIM FORET is 75 and our old trees. I am grateful resided in Lafayette from 1950 to 1969. He is now a resident of lower-upper St. Martin Parish north of for those opportunities to educate folks about how a tree makes a living and how New Iberia. Married to his to keep them healthy. wife Paula for 53 years, they have four children, Rachel, Jacob, Amy and Joe. Foret’s formal Along with love of family there is that deep satisfying joy in caring for our trees, training is in horticulture. Acadiana. ■