If variety is the spice of life, then Chicken’s Kitchen in Gretna could be considered one of its culinary epicenters. So much so that it was named to The New York Times “Restaurant List 2022: 50 Places In America We Are Most Excited About Right Now.”

On the Menu

The menu — colorfully written on a large blackboard on the wall — features daily specials Monday through Friday that include fried chicken, braised beef, half-stuffed Cornish hen, oxtails (the first Tuesday of the month), smothered turkey necks, Five-Star Mac (named for the five cheeses used for it), potato salad, seafood smothered okra, and candied yams, to name just a few. Other options include red beans, white beans, and black-eyed peas with rice dishes.

Then there are the multiple ways you can combine them: a fried pork chop with white beans, cabbage, and candied yams might be your preference, or perhaps red beans with fried chicken, Five-Star Mac, and honey cornbread is more your style.

Each combination offers a unique and delicious flavor profile. (Combine some white beans and rice with the candied yams. Trust us.)

And don’t forget to finish the meal with a sweet treat by Anointed Confections.

Take-Out Plate Lunches

The man behind this culinary cornucopia is restaurant owner Marlon Chukumerije — his nickname is Chicken, hence the restaurant’s name.

Chukumerije’s mother and grandmother taught him to cook, and in 2014, a friend asked him to cater a wedding. Out of this adventure grew a catering business, and when the opportunity arose to open a restaurant in September 2020, he took it.
The menu he created features New Orleans and southern-style dishes that work well as take-out plate lunches.

“The idea was to find things that hold well in the heat, things that could stay long and not
change the quality,” says Chukumerije.

“There are things I would love to add to the menu, but we just can’t,” he adds, stating certain pasta dishes and vegetables don’t work well for take-out, while others do.

Red Beans & Rice, Perfected

One dish he worked hard to perfect was the red beans and rice.

“When we opened, we made red beans four or five different ways,” he said. “It was trial and error.”

“And I landed on this version because I got the most consistent feedback from customers.”

The version Chukumerije and his crew hit on starts with Camellia Red Kidney beans soaked overnight.

Green onions, celery and parsley are added, then Tony Chachere’s, Italian seasoning, onion, garlic powder, and chicken bouillon powder, which he says amplifies the flavors.

When it came to pork, he worked hard to find the right cut and flavor.

“Certain people have pork issues,” he says, noting that ham seasoning, salt pork, and pickled pork (tips, tails, for example) were not popular.

The one ingredient everyone liked was smoked sausage. “That’s the only meat we put in it,” he says.

For the restaurant’s white beans dish, Chukumerije uses Camellia Navy Beans and the same cooking process and ingredients used for the red beans.

As for the blackeye peas, Chukumerije uses scraps from that day’s fried ribs to add flavor.

Red beans are traditionally served on Monday, blackeye peas on Tuesday, and white beans on Wednesday.

A Love of Green Onions

Another unexpected ingredient used in Chicken Kitchen’s bean & rice dishes is green onion. “Something I learned here that I think gives our beans a unique flavor, which most people don’t do, is we finish it off with lots of green onions,” he says. “Right when we are doing the cooking, while it’s still super hot, we put the chopped green onions in there and mix it.

“It elevates it to a whole different level,” he says.

Praise for Chicken’s Kitchen

What Chukumerije is doing is working based on the line of customers outside of the restaurant who know to get there early as food often sells out fast. And, of course, the restaurant’s recognition in the New York Times.

“It’s a gratifying achievement that wouldn’t even be possible without the community support we get on the daily. That’s more special to me,” he says.

Chicken’s Kitchen, 629 Derbigny St., Gretna; Mon.- Fri., 10:30 a.m. – 3:00 p.m., chickens-kitchen.com; on Instagram.

When owner and chef Jeffrey Heard opened the doors to his restaurant on March 2, 2015, his wife made the red beans and rice.

“She had always cooked them for me at home,” Heard says. “So I let her cook them here.”

But when he entered the Krewe of Red Beans “Bean Madness” contest in 2017, he decided to take on the challenge himself. Working from the memory of his mother’s red beans and rice recipe, he made a batch and had his oldest brother do the taste-testing. His brother proclaimed them “marvelous.”

Heard’s red beans made it to the final eight contenders out of 64 in the competition, but in trying to make more batches, he wasn’t able to cook the beans long enough. “They didn’t have enough time to break down right,” he says, and they didn’t make it to the final four.

Despite that, Heard was hooked on making red beans and rice.

Precision: The Key to Heard’s Red Beans

The process for making everything he serves at the restaurant is precise — including the red beans and rice.

“What I do now is soak them in water overnight. Then, the next day, I cook them on a high fire for about eight hours,” he says.

“And then after that, I simmer them on a real low fire for about 12 hours. I don’t put any seasoning or anything in it. I’m just trying to get them broken down.”

Once they reach the consistency Heard likes, if he doesn’t need them right away, he separates the red beans into portions and puts them in the refrigerator or freezer. Heard then sautés onions, peppers, and pork sausage and puts that aside, divided into portions, as needed. His dry seasonings, including garlic and onion powder, are all ready in a Ziploc bag, again, divided into portions.

Most of the prep takes place on Saturdays, so when Mondays roll around, “I’ll just put it all in the pot, so with that process, it takes me about an hour to an hour and a half to finish cooking.”

His secret? Don’t rush the beans. “I found slow cooking them on that real low fire is what really will make them creamy.” His preferred bean is Camellia Red Kidney Beans. “It’s just something my mom always used. It was like it was a rule and the only kind we had in the house, actually,” he says.

From Front of House to Back of House

Heard was born and raised in New Orleans, the second oldest of six boys. He worked in the hospitality industry for more than 30 years, serving in a variety of front-of-house positions, including waiter, operations manager, and banquet captain at places such as Restaurant August and the Crowne Plaza/W Hotel/Le Méridien on Poydras Street.

Though Heard didn’t work in the kitchen during that time, he watched and learned from chefs such as Michael Gulotta, Michael Stoltzfus, Brian Landry, John Besh, Alon Shaya and Agnes Bellet. And he credits learning the importance of how to plate food so it looks appetizing to his time at Restaurant August.

While working at these establishments, he would often be asked where to find authentic New Orleans food – “I want to go where you eat,” people would say to him. No one knew better than he did, so when the opportunity came along to open his own restaurant, he took it.

A Restaurant of His Own

Heard’s family members are his main collaborators: son, Jeffrey Heard Jr. and daughters Tia’Nesha Heard-Dorset and Angel Heard.

The restaurant’s Audrey Mae’s Catering is named after his mom. Heard was catering before he opened the restaurant at the corner of Magnolia and Felicity streets, in a building with historic roots. Built by Johann Heinrich Keller of Keller Southern Soap Works, it housed the largest manufacturer of soap products in the South in the late 19th century, with products distributed to the eastern U.S., Mexico, and Central America. The front of the building still has the Keller name on it. Before the COVID-19 pandemic, it accommodated a food store and the restaurant’s dining area, but neither the food store nor the inside dining area have re-opened.

Heard Dat Kitchen’s menu is available for take-out or can be eaten outside at the picnic tables, but Heard is hoping the owner will soon re-open the building. He’d like to use the larger kitchen and offer inside dining again.

“It would be a perfect spot for coffee, as the neighborhood doesn’t have a coffee shop,” says Heard, who prefers to wear a t-shirt proclaiming, “Exceed Expectations,” a phrase based on Ephesians 3:20.

The red beans and rice do live up to the promise of the t-shirt’s expression; served with a choice of fish or chicken that’s blackened or fried, it is a popular menu item. (Heard points out the blackened chicken works well with the red beans.) Two other signature menu items include the Superdome — a blackened fish dish in a lobster cream sauce with fresh corn and crispy onion rings, and Bourbon Street Love — a baked macaroni dish topped with fried chicken and a crawfish cream sauce.

Heard Dat Kitchen is both a neighborhood spot and a place people seek out – for the food, the experience, and for Jeffrey Heard himself.

Says Chef Gulotta, “I worked with Jeffrey years ago when we had to execute massive private dinners together, and he was unflappable through countless high stress situations – and his knowledge and love of great wine is also unmatched. When I tried his food at Heard Dat Kitchen, he floored me again.”

“My biggest motto is, I tell people that I’m in the memory-making business,” says Heard.

Heard Dat Kitchen, 2520 Felicity St., (504) 510-4248, @_hearddat_ on Instagram, heardatkitchen.com. Hours: Mon. – Sat., 11 a.m.- 8 p.m.

Keeping New Orleanians Well Fed Since WW II
Leni’s Cafe is like going home, a place where you will find comfort food just like what your mom or grandmother — and let’s not forget dad and grandfather — made.

From a grilled cheese to a cheeseburger, omelet to egg sandwich, and red beans to white beans, this Baronne Street diner’s plate breakfasts and lunches have been keeping New Orleanians well fed since at least World War II.

Since 1978, the Warehouse District restaurant has been owned by Pete Patselikos.

He is, however, not Leni. That would be a previous owner (circa early 1960s), Leni Kampitsis; Leni is short for Eleni, a Greek name, and Greece is the country from which Patselikos hails.

“After the purchase, I continued what she had created,” says Patselikos, talking about the menu, which at its heart is American Greek diner food with New Orleans dishes.

That includes red and white beans.

The Secrets to Leni’s Red Beans
Patselikos claims there is no real secret to his red beans — “cook the red beans, put in the right seasoning” — but as you talk to him more, a few key elements pop out.

“We don’t soak the red beans,” he says, adding that people often soak them because of the quality. That’s not an issue at Leni’s because the restaurant uses Camellia Beans.

“Start by putting the beans in cold water, let them boil,” says Patselikos, “then put in the seasonings including pepper and celery, as well as sausage and ham.”

And don’t forget to add tomato paste to give it some color, Patselikos advises, sharing that butter is also added.

Only on Mondays
This process starts sometime between 5:30 – 6 am, and the red beans are done by 9:30 am, when they are creamy.

“We make them only on Mondays,” says Patselikos.

“Very traditional,” Patselikos’ wife Despina Patselikos says, referring to the New Orleans’ custom of making red beans and rice on Mondays. The origins of the Monday tradition can be traced back about 100 years to when women would simmer the beans on a stove during the day while they did the wash.

Customers can get the red beans and rice as is or with “Whatever you want that’s on the menu … it’s usually with smoked sausage. Some order a pork chop. A lot of people like to have it with fried shrimp,” says Patselikos.

#WhiteBeanWednesday
Then there is Leni’s white beans and rice, only served on Wednesdays. Instead of using Great Northern Beans, the restaurant uses Camellia’s Large Limas.

Why?

“That’s what they were making 45 years ago,” says Patselikos, who says he is continuing the legacy of the previous owners, such as Leni.

Classic & Time-Tested
And for a long time, Greeks have owned the restaurant. Before the current owners, there were Pete G. Michailakis and Gus Michailakis during the late 1960s and 1970s (they were either the same person or related to each other), and prior to that, Leni Kampitsis. A newspaper article from 1941 shows Margaret Wellbat — who may or may not have been Greek — owned the restaurant and that she was fleeced out of $15 by a Robert E. Byrd pretending to be in the army.

During the 1920s, the space was home to Monarch Sheet Metal Works and around World War I, it housed Murray Welding and Metal Works.

Now in 2022, there is no denying that when a customer walks into Leni’s Cafe, they will be served time-tested classic New Orleans dishes — such as red beans or white beans and rice — Leni’s style.

Leni’s Café, 741 Baronne St., 504.523.0069; Hours, Mon.-Fri. 6 a.m. – 2:30 p.m.

NOTE: As of 10/2024, Mahoney’s is under new ownership and doesn’t serve red or white bean dishes and the French Quarter location ​is now closed​.

Mahony’s Po-Boys & Seafood’s Casey Levy had just received an urgent text from his staff at the French Quarter location. It wasn’t about the air-conditioning acting up or a delivery that hadn’t shown up yet. Nope – his staff wanted to know how soon he was going to bring the white beans over. White beans and rice — they are periodically on the menu as a special — are a favorite for staff and customers at Mahony’s.

Quality and consistency on the menu
For both the red bean and white bean dishes at Mahony’s, that meant using Camellia Beans.
“The quality and consistency achieved from about a century of maintaining those standards – how could we not want to use a local brand that lives that?” said Levy.

For every white bean there is a season
The white bean specials — Mahony’s uses Camellia Bean’s Great Northern variety — only happen about six months a year, divided somewhat by seasons. During the fall and winter months, that version is “looser, more old school style,” and is served with griddled shrimp with house seasoning that adds sweetness to it. The creamier version usually comes out during Hogs for the Cause, a culinary benefit in late March, and like the festival, is pork-centric.

Red beans: always on the menu
The red beans, which are always on the menu, are also made creamy. For that dish Levy “went to the drawing board … back to basics of what I learned early on in my family’s restaurants …. red beans old school, let the ingredients talk to themselves and figure out how they will handshake together.”

But instead of soaking the beans overnight using cold water, Levy said “we use hot water and add the smoked ham hock right away, with soaking only needed for five hours.”

After that, the smoked ham hock is removed, the beans are rinsed off quickly, then put back into the pot. “The absorbing of the smoky water into the beans gives them a different ‘bite’ when eating the beans. Lets you have that porky goodness without all the heavy oils needed,” said Levy.

Always cook the garlic in bacon fat
“Add your normal trinity, then garlic rendered in bacon fat,” said Levy, “a bay leaf and a little salt and pepper. We don’t add much seasoning at all.” They let the mixture simmer for a bit with the bay leaves and spices, then add in thin-sliced andouille sausage. “This will cook into the beans and give them that ‘lil extra flex,” says Levy.

Near the end of the cooking, when the red beans are creamy, a dab of Tabasco sauce is mixed in, before it is served with popcorn rice, smoked sausage and jalapeno butter cornbread. Some customers opt to have fried chicken with it.

Keeping it old school
“Like with many restaurants in Louisiana, the varying ways that they cook their beans lends to a great sampling of old school and newer flavors that can exist in the ‘kitchen sink’ cooking of the red and white beans world,” says Levy. “I like to think that ours has a taste and ‘feel’ that lets people remember a simpler way of cooking them and create that simmering of memory that made them fall in love with red beans in the first place.”

Mahony’s Po-Boys & Seafood, 3454 Magazine St., (504) 899-3374; 901 Iberville St., (504) 717-2422, mahonyspoboys.com

Where everyone knows your name
Café 615, Home of the Da Wabbit restaurant, with its iconic, vintage Bugs Bunny themed neon sign, began as a drive-in restaurant in 1948. Today it continues to be the place Westbankers (and others in the know) go for great New Orleans food. On a typical Monday, which is red beans and rice day, of course, it’s packed with diners. The waitresses are in nonstop motion and seem to know everyone by their first name. This familial feeling – not to mention the restaurant’s famed red beans – brings the neighborhood here, and that’s how owners Donna and Eric Savoie like it.

A restaurant history in neon
The Savoies bought this Gretna landmark in 2004 and renamed it Café 615, Home of Da Wabbit, keeping a link to its previous owner, “Da Wabbit” Licciardi, who won the building in a card game in 1946. Before Licciardi owned it, the business was a drive-up diner and bar called Kerner’s, which was also known as a place to gamble. Today, this old-school New Orleans tradition and the food keep bringing people back. “That’s how our business has grown – by just word of mouth or just locals,” says Dawn.

A red beans recipe for 300…and counting
When Eric recounts their red beans and rice recipe, he thinks in bulk – he says they serve about 300 portions on Mondays for lunch and dinner. He constructs his dish in steps: “We start with 50 pounds of dry beans. Add around 10 to 12 large bay leaves, then add two cups of liquid smoke and eight large smoked ham hocks. We boil it until the beans are soft, then add four cups of chopped garlic and 35 pounds of smoked sausage cut in quarters. We cook that until the garlic is soft, then add two pounds of non-salted butter. Then let it cook for two to three hours.”

Two pounds of butter – yes indeed!
The butter, he says, makes the mixture creamy. Eric then adds three or four stalks of celery chopped, 15 bell peppers, and 25 large onions, all chopped, which are all cooked down. “You don’t cook it until you can’t see the seasoning, because you still want to see the seasoning. We just cook it until it’s translucent, so it’s soft, but visible, and then we add salt.” The dish is completed with a side of a pork chop or smoked sausage.

Red beans, white beans… but always Camellia Beans
The only beans Eric will use, which also include the Thursday special of white beans and rice, are Camellia Beans. “It’s a family tradition,” said Eric, to use the beans. And it’s one that can’t be messed with. It’s staple and most people that come in are getting the red beans,” Dawn notes. “It’s a New Orleans thing.”

Pork chop or smothered rabbit on the side
For the white beans and rice – which can be ordered with pork chop or smothered rabbit (not the “wascally” kind) – Eric uses a different cooking technique: “We boil navy beans in plain water until they are soft, then we add regular onions, green onions, pickled meat, salt and pepper to taste. We check it until the pickled meat is tender and the beans are soft and creamy. Way easier than the red beans!”

Café 615, Home of Da Wabbit, 615 Kepler St., Gretna, 504-365-1225, cafe615.com

To understand how important the Fiorella family has been to the food culture of New Orleans, just ask the folks who line up early at Fiorella’s Cafe in Gentilly, waiting for the doors to open. They wait for that hot and crunchy, award-winning fried chicken that is perfectly seasoned down to the bone. Some are there for the wide variety of po-boys on the menu. And many are there early on Mondays for first dibs on the hearty, smoky Monday red beans and rice before they sell out.

Family Recipes from a French Quarter Restaurant

Owners Kelly and Calcie Fiorella are carrying on a family tradition, with family recipes, based on the original Fiorella’s Restaurant on Decatur Street in the New Orleans French Quarter, which was operated by their dad, CJ Fiorella, until he closed it 1999. As that restaurant’s origin story goes, CJ was a New Orleans grocer of Sicilian descent who just wanted a good cup of coffee. Every day CJ would make his way to the French Market to buy fresh produce. After taking care of business, he would stop in the Market Place Restaurant and purchase a coffee. One day in 1984, the restaurant’s owner, Anthony Bianca, who knew CJ and his family and their love of cooking, approached him and offered to sell him the restaurant. It took a bit of pushing from a friend, but CJ finally accepted, and Fiorella’s was born.
CJ renamed it Fiorella’s Cafe and brought a large amount of the family’s own recipes to the restaurant. Not completely satisfied with the menu, he began to walk around the French Quarter and look at the different menus to see what others were doing. Since this was a family style neighborhood spot, he wanted to make sure he offered red beans and rice on Mondays, served butter beans another day, and stayed true to a typical New Orleans menu – but with a Fiorella spin.
“When my brother and I decided to reopen the family restaurant here in Gentilly, I said to him, I’m the one doing all of the cooking,” said Kelly Fiorella. He was not only excited to be back in the kitchen but also to bring back the original family recipes, including the famous fried chicken (they go through about 80 to 100 pounds of it per day).

How do you red bean, Fiorella’s?

Fiorellas Cafe in Gentilly on June 14, 2021.

One plate you will only find on Monday is red beans and rice – a recipe that was handed down from Kelly’s grandmother. “It was a tradition, and it was always with Camellia beans,” he said. “There were always little bags of Camellia beans in the pantry,” he said. “She also had stacks of Camellia white beans, red beans, navy and black-eyed peas. I can remember always seeing that little Camellia logo.”
On a typical Monday, Fiorella’s goes through about 10 to 12 pounds of Camellia red beans, according to Kelly. It’s all made fresh Monday morning and usually sells out by mid-afternoon. And when it’s gone for the day, it’s gone. Fiorella’s red beans recipe is a hearty one. You will find the hint of bacon with the onions, bell peppers, and garlic. They add ham, pork shoulder, and andouille sausage. The key to a good pot of beans, Kelly says, is to cook them low and slow.

Fiorella’s Weekday Specials – A Schedule to Live By

Kelly also uses Camellia’s large lima beans for the Thursday special of butter beans and rice. “I love the butter beans,” he said. “They’ve got so much flavor to them.” Other weekday specials include meatloaf on Tuesdays, Italian sausage and shells on Wednesday, and shrimp Creole on Fridays. The menu also includes favorite family classics like meatballs and spaghetti, veal parmesan, hamburger steak, fried seafood, a variety of po-boys, and of course, the fried chicken. In both 2016 and 2017, Kelly and Calcie earned the “best fried chicken” award at the National Fried Chicken Festival.

“It’s all family recipes,” said Kelly. “The red beans is a family recipe handed down.”

Fiorellas Cafe in Gentilly on June 14, 2021.

Kelly’s love of cooking was sparked early on, when visiting his grandmother. “Every time you walked into that woman’s house, it smelled like she was cooking a pot of red gravy or something,” he said. “That’s my grandmother’s meatballs that we use with the spaghetti. She taught us her recipes.”
The history of those who came before him is important to Kelly. Black and white photographs of relatives decorate the walls and serve as reminders of the legacy he wants to continue and build upon. The building itself has historical importance, too. The Fiorellas have had a longtime friendship with the Bologna family that formerly operated Teddy’s Grill at this location. To pay homage to that friendship and what the restaurant meant to the Gentilly neighborhood, two black plastic bull heads from Teddy’s Grill watch over the dining room. “We always just wanted to stay true to what is tradition in New Orleans,” Kelly added.

Written by Eric Olsson

Unfortunately, due to losses from Hurricane Ida in 2021, Dunbar’s Creole Cuisine is now officially closed after serving soul food to generations of New Orleanians.

Since Celestine Dunbar was a child, Camellia beans have been a part of her life in one way or another. “I can see my mother right now using one of those little packs of Camellia beans,” said Dunbar. “I can’t remember her ever not using them. They were just a part of our family.”

Cooking for her family is how Dunbar gained the confidence to open Dunbar’s Creole Cooking on Freret Street in 1986. “There were seven children, and it was their job to get up in the morning and make breakfast for the family. Then, they would turn around and start making lunch. I helped out and cooked a lot.” 

In the beginning, Dunbar’s offered deli sandwiches in keeping with the deli business she’d taken over at that location, but eventually she began to cook hot meals at her house and bring them in to sell. Many of the recipes were ones that her parents and grandmother taught her to make. Each day she would bring in a different special. Monday was red beans and rice. Tuesday was cabbage and barbecue chicken. Wednesday was meatballs and spaghetti. Many of these specials are still served to this day, and all of them are the same family recipes.

Celestine Dunbar never stopped cooking

For almost 20 years, Dunbar’s Creole Cooking was a fixture on Freret Street, but that all ended in 2005 after she lost the restaurant to the floodwaters from Hurricane Katrina and the fight with insurance companies that followed. To keep the Dunbar’s name out there, she went back to her roots of cooking in her own home kitchen and selling the food elsewhere. Her first stop was the food court at the Loyola University College of Law in New Orleans. After five years of serving students Uptown, she went on to deliver hot pre-plated meals to the workers on lunch at the Chalmette refinery.

This allowed Dunbar time to save up and purchase a new location, and she found that location in 2017 at 7834 Earhart Boulevard in New Orleans. Though the name of the restaurant changed to Dunbar’s Creole Cuisine, everything else stayed the same when they moved into the bigger location. Longtime friend and chef, Frank Jones, rejoined her as head of the kitchen. “He knows all of the recipes,” Dunbar said about Jones, who has been with her for over 30 years. “Frank does it all.”

“All they want is Camellia beans” 

As lunchtime hits, locals come out for the red beans and rice. “We sell them every day,” Dunbar said. “They’ll buy the red beans and rice before they’ll buy anything else.” She admits that over 60% of sales are for the red beans with fried chicken. On most days they go through about 12 pounds of Camellia red beans and up to 25 pounds a day during Carnival season leading up to Mardi Gras.

The recipe for the beans has been the same since the beginning. “We start with the trinity (white onions, green bell pepper, and celery) along with a lot of water,” Dunbar stated. “Then, you boil the trinity with garlic, green onions, granulated garlic, and a little parsley until the vegetables have become soft. You add your meat and seasoning (a special blend of black pepper and cayenne pepper) when the beans are about 90% done. This gives it it’s flavor.”

There are two tricks she offers for making the beans nice and creamy. The first trick is to add vegetable oil in the beginning. Dunbar says that by doing this, it will not only prevent the beans from boiling over and ruining the seasonings but will also help make the beans creamy. The other trick, or secret she learned from her mother all those years before, is to use Camellia brand red beans. “Camellia brand beans are just the best red beans there is. They are pink, fresh, and you just always get a beautiful red bean.”

Giving back to the community

Like many restaurants throughout New Orleans, Dunbar’s Creole Cuisine worked with the Chef’s Brigade NOLA, a united coalition of restaurants and chefs working together to offer food to those in need during the COVID pandemic, including front line responders, and healthcare workers. Dunbar said that they use Camellia brand lima beans and serve them with baked chicken seasoned with the “Louisiana Trinity” over a bed of white rice. The Chef’s Brigade produced up to 60,000 meals a day, utilizing independent restaurants throughout Orleans Parish to feed at-risk residents and neighbors throughout New Orleans.

Dunbar is happy that the restaurant can do its part in giving back to the community. She understands that the people of New Orleans have been an integral part in the continued success of her restaurant and rallied behind her to keep Dunbar’s Creole Cuisine going. Though there have been many ups and downs and stressful days, she always looks forward to what is to come – and there are exciting new plans. And through it all, she says that one thing will be certain, “people will come from all over the world and ask for those Camellia red beans and rice with fried chicken.”

Unfortunately, due to losses from Hurricane Ida in 2021, Dunbar’s Creole Cuisine is now officially closed after serving soul food to generations of New Orleanians.

Written by Eric Olsson

If the walls could talk.

Pimm’s Cups, intrigue, first dates, proposals of varying sorts, assignations, Creole flavors and a place to rest after a long day in the French Quarter — Napoleon House hasn’t changed much since 1914 when this famed bar and restaurant was opened by the Impastato family.

But if the walls could talk, Napoleon House would start telling tales from an earlier time when the building was owned by Nicolas Girod. Nicolas was a businessman, mayor of New Orleans from 1812 to 1815, and a dreamer and schemer. Soon after inheriting the building in 1814, he began to alter it, creating the three-story building that we see today. Legend says the work was done in preparation for the arrival of Napoleon Bonaparte, whose supporters — rumored to include local pirates Jean Lafitte and Dominique You — were planning to help him escape from exile in Saint Helena and come to New Orleans.

Napoleon died before this alleged escape plan came to fruition, but his portraits still preside over the Napoleon House on the faded plaster walls, and the stern bust of his countenance surveys the dreamily illuminated bar and restaurant where cocktails and classic New Orleans cuisine rule the day and night.

Red Beans on Monday

In 2015, executive Chef Chris Montero of the Ralph Brennan restaurant group took the helm at Napoleon House, where he is also the general manager. Montero, who’s from an 8th-generation New Orleans family and well-versed in classic Creole cuisine, kept many of the original Impastato family recipes, merely tweaking them with artisan-made ingredients. At the top of that list of was Monday red beans and rice.

Montero grew up sampling different red beans and rice styles: his grandmother preferred ham hock, pickled pork, and a spicy smoked sausage; his mother rendered pork and sausage. For his own version of red beans, Montero harkens back to his grandmother’s classic Creole cooking. “I make it with chicken stock,“ he said.

Sausage that tastes good and does good.

One of the two sausages Montero uses in Napoleon House red beans is a Creole smoked sausage that has a local — and philanthropic — origin. As part of “Silence of da Hams,” a team that competes in Hogs for the Cause (a barbecue competition held in New Orleans that’s an annual benefit for pediatric brain cancer), Montero helped develop the sausage. It’s also available in grocery stores, and a portion of its sales goes to Hogs.

Camellia in the (Napoleon) House

Montero also uses Camellia Brand beans. As he put it, “To me this is the only brand people buy.” Montero leaves the important job of preparing the dish at Napoleon House to Josh Bierria, the restaurant’s production chef. A “behind-the-scenes” person, Bierria is an essential part of the team, said Montero. “Josh’s Camellia red beans and rice have become a big item on Goldbelly.com” said Montero, adding, “Two weeks ago we shipped 200 cases of red beans and rice in a day, all over the U.S.” Would Napoleon have liked red beans and rice? Montero contemplates for a moment and answers, “Why, not?!”

Written by Sue Strachan

Forty-five years ago, Leo Christakis decided to purchase Mena’s Palace in the French Quarter as a way to move back to Greece. When he learned that the restaurant was for sale, he told his brother, Leo, “Let’s buy it, make some money to save up, and move back to Greece.” His brother agreed. But as the years went on and the business continued to thrive, Christakis and his family began to build relationships and friendships with those who lived around the restaurant. “In my culture,” he said, “you go to a friend’s house, and they ask you what do you want to eat? What do you want to drink? Then, we sit around and talk, and drink, and eat. That is how we do it here, that is how we take care of our customers.”

“He refuses to buy any other brand than Camellia.”

“It’s all he’s ever cooked with,” said Leo’s daughter and restaurant co-owner Ellie Christakis, referring to her dad. “One time, an order came in for lima beans. Our supplier had sent a different brand and we had used them because we had to make some lima beans. He tasted it. ‘No. These aren’t Camellia,’ he said. ‘Don’t order anything but Camellia.’ And we definitely learned our lesson. The color was different. The taste was different. It’s amazing what a difference Camellia makes.”

Start with the trinity.

At Mena’s they start their red beans with the trinity (onions, bell peppers and celery). They sauté it down and add smoked sausage as the seasoning meat. Once the red beans are added, they cook them for a long time to get to that creamy texture and serve them with fried chicken or smoked sausage on the side. Ellie Christakis explained that the family uses Camellia products at home, too. She makes the Greek soup ‘Fakes’ with Camellia lentils. The soup (pronounced ‘Fah-kehs’) is traditionally made with lentils, water, red onions, garlic, bay leaves and a tomato puree (if you want it reddened) and served with an added drizzle of extra virgin olive oil and lots of vinegar. “There’s another one called a ‘Fasolada’ and it uses a Great Northern Bean. And we only use Camellia,” Ellie Christakis said of the soup that many consider to be one of the national dishes of Greece.

Here for the community.

One thing that has been certain about Mena’s Palace and the Christakis family is that they have always put the needs of the neighborhood first. Whether it was coming back from Hurricane Katrina or riding out the pandemic, their top priorities have always been to treat everyone like family, keep prices low, serve big portions of high-quality food, and remain consistent. “We appreciate our customers and the relationships and friendships we have with them,” Ellie Christakis said. “New Orleans is such a nice city, especially in the French Quarter. There are so many good people. A lot of warmth and love.”

New Orleans is home.

“I wanted to move back to Greece, but never did,” said Leo Christakis reflecting on his decision to stay in New Orleans and continue operating Mena’s Palace with his family. “You get to understand the people, and I loved that. I wanted to see the customers happy and the rest took care of itself. I am 77. I’m still working, and I still like it.”

Written by Eric Olsson

Etta Sullivan, Lily Taylor, and my grandma Nellie Sullivan. Photo courtesy of R.L. Reeves, Jr.

This post hails from R.L. Reeves, Jr., a Texas photographer and writer who is living and documenting life in the 9th Ward of New Orleans. His recipes and cooking notes can be found on his food and culture blog, scrumptiouschef.com

“Boy you’re not gonna amount to a hill of beans.”

That was my grandma Nellie Sullivan’s standard exclamation anytime I did something that got her ire up.

That was about as strong a ‘talking to’ as I ever received, but in the Cumberland Highlands of Eastern Kentucky that was plenty stout enough.

In the early part of the 20th century a hill of pinto beans had such little worth the good mountain people of the region quit growing them.

It was cheaper and less taxing on the granny women who tended the gardens to just saddle up one of the family’s mules and ride down to Bargo’s General Store and buy a big sack for a few pennies.

That’s how the invective “…hill of beans” came to be.

I’ve lived all over the southern region of the United States and have never found bean-loving cultures as strong as the ones in Eastern Kentucky and Louisiana, specifically New Orleans.

Let’s discuss:

Ham hock vs Creole or hot sausage.

The standard protein for a bowl of Appalachian pinto beans is a giant ham hock with plenty meat attached. You lower it into the broth along with the dry beans and magic occurs over the next two hours as the beans turn tender and the silky ham meat falls off the bone.

Here in New Orleans we do the same thing but with the addition of Creole or ‘hot’ sausage serving as a meaty garnish that straddles a bowl of Camellia kidney beans.

There is a deep love in this part of Louisiana for ‘pickle meat,’ a hold-over from the pre-refrigeration era in Louisiana. If your family had a surfeit of fresh hog meat they had to figure out a way to preserve it to last them through the winter. Pickling that fresh meat ensured that they would have plenty protein to last them throughout the year without the luxury of a big Frigidaire in their kitchen.

That pickled pork meat was and is a standard part of the red beans kettle.

When I was a little kid, hog killing time was marked by the first frost. That’s when the pigs kept in my grandpa Big Jim Sullivan’s pen knew the end of their days had come. Pickling was my grandma’s forte and was reserved for vegetables. Big Jim had a smokehouse in the backyard with 50-pound bags of saltpetre at the ready. The fresh meat was covered with a blend of that sodium nitrate along with regular salt and that combination cured and preserved the meat to great effect.

Hickory smoked, cured ham hocks were part and parcel of every pot of pinto soup beans that my grandma ever made.

Corn bread vs French bread.

I still remember the look of disdain I received from a New Orleans waitress when I asked after cornbread on a vacation here back in the 80s. “We don’t serve that dawlin” she flatly stated. My mind raced. How was I supposed to soak up the likker in the bottom of my bowl? A foot-long loaf of French bread quickly arrived to table, and it was fine but not in the same league as a pone of hot cornbread garnished with a hunk of cow’s butter. If you opened a diner in Eastern Kentucky and did not serve cornbread you’d go belly up within a month. If you tried the same thing in New Orleans sans French bread you’d shutter just as quick.

Any day of the week vs Monday.

Across the Appalachian mountains of Eastern Kentucky folks hit the kitchen on a nightly basis to cook up a kettle of pinto beans. There is not a traditional “bean day.” Here in New Orleans we do things a little different. Monday is the day that cooks across the city fire up the bean pot to feed family and friends. Restaurants here further the tradition by putting sandwich boards on the sidewalk in front of their establishment with quaint artwork trumpeting the kitchen’s bean output for the day.

Fried potatoes vs rice.

Every pinto bean cook in Kentucky has their own particular way they fry their potatoes as a standard side for their beans. My daddy would cut Irish potatoes into crude batons and slowly cook them in rendered hog lard with plenty yellow onion til the potatoes were crisp and the onions were tawny brown and fully caramelized. You’d then take the potatoes and put them in the bowl with the beans and make a heavenly mash.

In New Orleans we simply boil up a pot of good rice, put the rice into the bottom of the bowl and pour the beans over the top. If you’re really feeling enterprising you may also toss a cube of bouillon in the rice kettle.

Piccalilli vs hot sauce.

That rich pot of beans you’ve been simmering on your stovetop all day needs an acidic counterpoint to give it a little jolt. In Kentucky that call is answered by piccalilli, a lightly-fermented jar-bound melange of vegetables that have been treated with vinegar and allowed to mature in a dark cupboard. In New Orleans we crack open a bottle of Crystal or Tabasco hot sauce and douse the beans with the liquid fire.

Chile spice is foreign to the Kentucky tongue, where people will talk of how a bell pepper “lit them up.” Down here on the bayous we love our hot peppers, and are always figuring out ways to get a little extra heat in our dishes.

I’m left to wonder who has the stronger bean culture, Kentucky or Louisiana?

Neither. This is not a zero sum game. Each place has a clutch of dedicated eaters and cooks who pour their heart into their bean kettles. I’ve been fortunate to call both states home and you won’t find a place on earth with more welcoming people – and you can’t beat the cooks or the food cultures of either.

As you walk up to, the aroma of fried chicken fills the air. People from all over the world line up and wait, sometimes hours, to enter Willie Mae’s Scotch House, a small two-room restaurant in the historic Treme neighborhood of New Orleans. They’re attracted by not only the aroma of perfectly fried chicken, but also by the accolades from the Food Network, the Travel Channel and the James Beard Foundation, which declared it an “American Classic Restaurant” for carrying on the traditions of great regional cuisine.

At one time, Willie Mae’s was just a corner spot that was only known within the neighborhood. It started out as a bar in 1957, then after moving to its current location, a beauty salon was added in the front because Willie Mae Seaton always wanted to be a beautician. She began to cook in the small kitchen behind the bar to feed the customers and soon after, they were telling her that she needed to open her own restaurant. In the early 1970s, the beauty shop was closed to make room for those who were coming in to eat the smothered veal, pork chops and that crispy, spicy fried chicken.

As word got around, the dining room, which seems more someone’s house than an actual restaurant, began to fill up. In May of 2005, the award from the James Beard Foundation put the old scotch house on the radar of every food critic, journalist, and tourist from around the country, and the lines stretched longer. But just months later, the restaurant was destroyed by Hurricane Katrina and the flooding that followed it.

After almost three years of rebuilding, with the help of countless volunteers and family members, Willie Mae’s Scotch House reopened to great acclaim. Willie Mae stepped aside and her great-granddaughter, Kerry Seaton-Stewart, carries on the tradition of the famed family-owned restaurant. The national praise of their fried chicken took off.

“Then of course there’s the trinity – celery, bell peppers and onions.”

Kerry Seaton-Stewart grew up in the kitchen with her great-grandmother and grandmother. “She had me in the kitchen with her my whole life,” Seaton-Stewart said, who began working at Willie Mae’s as a teenager. “She would require that I cooked all of these cultural meals. All the traditional meals. At school, they would fix red beans for lunches and I would just play with it because they were not my grandmother’s beans. I was always comparing and measuring the standard of red beans.”

But Seaton-Stewart knew that adapting to changing times was important to keep the restaurant moving forward. She noticed that those who lived outside of the southern region were not accustomed to eating lots of pork and fatty meats like they used in the pot of red beans or butter beans. “I felt the vegan wave coming on and I just wanted to be ahead of it and be inclusive,” she said. “That way, if people came in and they weren’t all pork eaters they can still eat it. I’ve been making them vegan for 14 years now.”

By switching the red beans and butter beans, which are large lima beans, to vegan, she felt that the actual flavor of the two dishes were lifted. One of the enhancements she found while doing taste tests with family and friends, was to include extra bay leaves. “Bay leaves are a must,” she said. “Then of course the trinity – celery, bell peppers and onions – and then some garlic.”  But the not-so-secret ingredient is in the red beans themselves.

“We use Camellia because it’s just a better grade of beans.”

Seaton-Stewart said that you can tell that the quality of Camellia beans is better than any other brands simply by the way they are farmed and cultivated.” You don’t have all the rocks in there and broken beans,” she said. “Camellia is high quality and they just cream better so you know when you cook them it’s going to make a good bean sauce. No other beans are going to be creamy like that.”

Expanding the tradition

Willie Mae’s Scotch House has been as popular as ever. After 60 years at the corners of St. Ann and Tonti in the Treme neighborhood, Seaton-Stewart expanded into the Central Business District food hall, Pythian Market, in 2019, with a condensed version of the restaurant. The new location still features the same iconic fried chicken and red beans and rice and will help meet the supply and demand to the loyal longtime following of locals and tourists to keep the legacy going.

“Red Beans tells the story of the culture of New Orleans,” Seaton-Stewart said. “It means home to me. It makes me think of my family because we have so many good times and great memories eating a pot of red beans.”

Written by Eric Olsson

In the middle of the ever-changing Bywater neighborhood in New Orleans, there is an unassuming yellow store front at the corners of Dauphine and Piety streets. Take one step inside the small grocery store and it’s like you are stepping back in time to the early 1970s.

The building that houses Frady’s One Stop has been around for more than a hundred years. Before Joseph Frady bought the going-out-of-business Flick’s Meat Market in 1972, it was an open-air fruit stand. Frady bought the meat market with two goals in mind: to turn it into a corner grocery store and to serve the best cold drinks and sandwiches. 

After Frady’s One Stop opened and word spread around the neighborhood about the food, locals began to ask for more than just sandwiches. To accommodate the customers, Frady had a small kitchen installed behind the counter with deep fryers and a stove and began to serve hot lunches and daily specials. Year after year, the list of po-boy sandwiches and daily specials could be found scrawled across the black chalkboards that decorate the interior.

A red beans tradition.

“Right away my father started to serve red beans and rice on Mondays because they were coming in and asking for it,” said Kirk Frady, who now runs the food store. “My dad was born and raised in New Orleans and grew up like that with my grandmother. Monday was wash day, and red beans and rice. People came into Frady’s and expected that.”

You’ll not only find packages of Camellia Beans being offered for sale on the grocery store shelf, but it’s also a Monday ‘lunch special’ that is served to-go with either smoked sausage or chicken, a vegetable (such as mustard or collard greens) and a dessert (bread pudding or a cobbler) for a price that has had loyal locals and in-the-know tourists coming back for decades.

“I don’t know where the recipe came from.”

“We usually cook four to five pounds of Camellia Red Beans every Monday,” Kirk Frady said. “I don’t know where the recipe came from. My dad hired a cook, an older lady, and she lived next door. She would soak the beans overnight, then she would come in and cook them. And it’s still the recipe we’re using today.”

To make the beans extra creamy, Kirk Frady says to use lots of butter along with mashing the beans in the end. To get that extra depth of flavor, besides onions, bell pepper, and garlic, he recommends using lots of celery. “We’re big on celery,” he said.

“We’ve always used Camellia. They have always been here and are established in New Orleans.”

Frady’s One Stop has established itself as a mainstay in an old neighborhood that is rapidly evolving around it. Away from the colorful residential streets that are lined with rows and rows of double shotgun houses and Creole cottages, the industrial spaces are being reclaimed and transformed as artists and musicians move in. Bed and breakfasts are sprouting up to meet the demand of tourists visiting this quirky, laid-back part of New Orleans.

“It’s a working-class neighborhood. We get a lot of carpenters and electricians, who are working on these old houses, come in to eat with us because it is an easy meal,” Kirk Frady said, “but with the Bywater being such a destination now, we’re selling a lot more groceries, like beans and hot sauces in little gift baskets because they want to take them back to where they are staying or send them back home. Even though they did not grow up with wash day and soaking beans, they know the drill and they want to take Camellia red beans and a Barq’s with them.”

“No Wifi at Frady’s. Sit and talk.”

At its core, Frady’s One Stop is still an old-world type of neighborhood grocery store, but deep down it’s one of the best spots to grab a bite to eat in New Orleans. While a small portion of the menu changes daily, the list of the sixteen po-boys offered along with the selection of breakfast that is served all day remains a fixture, just like the sign that reads “No Wifi at Frady’s. Sit and Talk.” So take your red beans and rice to go, sit outside on one of the colorfully painted benches, enjoy the charming neighborhood and know that no matter how much the area changes around you, the folks at Frady’s know what it means to be New Orleanians.

Written by Eric Olsson

Abita Springs is a quaint village deep in the piney woods of the North Shore of Lake Pontchartrain, about 45 minutes from New Orleans. Once a spa town where New Orleanians came to escape the summer heat and swim in the many local springs, it retains not only its 19th-century architectural charm but also its old-timey general store, right in the town’s CBB (central business block). With an emphasis on local tradition, Artigue’s Abita Market is a family business that serves the little community’s loyal residents, many of whom live in historic Victorian cottages close enough to walk to the store. Customers also include cyclists passing by on the nearby Tammany Trace bike path and day-trippers from New Orleans who come to check out the town’s attractions, including the quirky UCM Museum and the local Abita Beer microbrewery. 

A Small Town with Big Flavor

In addition to the grocery essentials required in any small Louisiana town, like Cajun spices, T-Rey’s local andouille sausage, spicy boiled peanuts and plenty of red beans, lima beans and blackeye peas, Artigue’s also offers a fresh daily specials menu, brought to life by chef Trey Herty. The menu features a rotation of classic Louisiana hot plates and po-boys plus local family recipes like Mom’s Red Beans and Rice with Pickled Meat, T-Rey’s Smoked Boudin, Louisiana Catfish Meuniere and Artigue’s famous Chicken and Smoked Sausage Gumbo. And not to be missed are the side dishes, from tasty Boudin Balls with Pepper Jelly Dipping Sauce to Stewed Green Baby Limas, Baked Yams and Collard Greens.

Artigue’s Red Bean Secrets Revealed

The menu at Artigue’s evolves along with the seasonal produce that’s locally available, while also staying true to New Orleans traditions such as Red Beans and Rice on Mondays. Sometimes the menu is more Cajun and other times it’s more Creole, but at Artigue’s it’s always Louisiana. So how does Artigue’s do red beans? Chef Trey essentially follows his mom’s recipe and adds in a few “chef hacks” along the way. (His mom, Reba, makes the best red beans he’s ever had.) For seasoning meat he uses products he developed – T-Rey’s Specialty Meats Smoked Sausage and Pickled Meat – which customers can also buy in the store. Chef Trey always browns the sausage in a separate pan and deglazes the pan with vegetables to impart a rich umami flavor to his red beans, and he keeps the spice lineup simple and classic: salt, black pepper and cayenne, with garlic added at several different stages of the cooking process and a couple of dashes of Louisiana Hot Sauce when serving. Can’t get much more Louisiana than that!

LSU Dining Executive Chef Laurence Landon, center, leads a cooking class for students.

When he’s not hilariously demonstrating clever ways for students to create quick meals in his comedic cooking series on YouTube entitled “Hack the Hall,” Executive Chef Laurence Landon has another regularly scheduled performance: managing the entirety of Louisiana State University’s Residential Dining operations. He knows how to stir the beans, as they say: the talent and commitment to quality and sustainability of Chef Laurence and his team have resulted in the 459 Commons Dining Hall’s certification by The Green Restaurant Association as 3-Star Green Restaurant. But on this day we found him in the kitchen, literally stirring the beans in a huge, rectangular vat, in anticipation of a busy lunch.

Beans taste like home.

Akin with many a Louisiana restaurant, The 5, as it’s called on campus, typically serves red beans on Mondays – a comforting taste of home for students from Louisiana. “Most students coming from other states aren’t aware of this tradition,” said Chef Laurence. He added that it doesn’t take long for them to learn just how important beans are in the food culture of the region. Chef Laurence also rotates lots of international bean dishes on the menu, like congri (a Cuban beans-and-rice comfort food), curries, falafel made with red beans or white beans, vegetarian bean burgers, and one of his favorite fusion foods – red beans and rice “egg rolls” – delicious dollops of red beans and rice wrapped in a wonton (like an egg roll) and fried. “Our menu is part down-home Southern and part eclectic international,” he said.

LSU’s Executive Chef of Residential Dining Laurence Landon stirs red beans ahead of a busy lunch at the 459 Commons Dining Hall on the LSU campus.

How do you red bean, Chef Laurence?

Chef Laurence makes his red beans – and all the beans on his menu – vegetarian, in order to be inclusive of vegan and vegetarian students, and serves platters of smoky meats and sausages that can be selected by diners as sides. His recipe is “pretty classic,” as he calls it – bay leaf, salt and pepper, cayenne, seasoning trinity – but he also adds “a bit of dried mustard and green hot sauce.” Chef orders his Camellia Red Kidney beans 25-pound sacks, and soaks them overnight on Sunday in anticipation of Monday’s lunch. Soaking them, he said, “quickens their cooking time and helps them cream faster.”

The Red Beans and Rice is served vegetarian, with meats and sausages as optional sides.

Healthy eating is part of the curriculum

Chef Laurence and his talented chefs and kitchen staff are at the forefront of LSU’s balanced lifestyle and healthy eating initiative, which brings eating into the educational sphere. The idea is that while students are at LSU, they’ll not only be studying academics, but will also be exposed to new foods and new ways of thinking about their eating habits, health and wellness. Fresh, local produce is a priority, nutritional values of foods are posted, and new life has been breathed into the dining menus as well as the university’s approach to student living – all of which provides multiple opportunities for that nutritional powerhouse, the bean, to steal the show.

Recently, we caught up with Chef Jay Ducote about his two-week Red Beans & Rice Tour through Texas. Along with his culinary crew, he cooked up over 250 lbs. of authentic Louisiana-style Red Beans & Rice with pop-up events at favorite breweries and restaurants across the state.

Jay Ducote is a chef, writer, speaker, entertainer and hugger based out of Baton Rouge, LA. He’s got a long bio, but to keep it short, he was a finalist on Food Network Star in 2015 and does big things in the food and beverage world. He runs a culinary media company called Bite & Booze and pretty much eats and drinks for a living.

What are your secrets to perfect Red Beans & Rice?

I love cooking red beans and rice outside in large cast-iron cauldrons. That’s how my cousin Travis taught me to do it at LSU tailgate parties. We soak the beans overnight, then cook them in the water that we soaked them in — to make sure there’s even more bean flavor in the finished product. The keys are: a good smoked sausage (we got ours for the trip from City Pork in Baton Rouge), a nice seasoning (we used Slap Ya Mama Cajun Seasoning, plus some kosher salt), and some herbs like bay leaves, sweet basil and sage.

I’ve got to give a shout out to Chef Aimee Tortorich, who is the future executive chef of Gov’t Taco which I’m opening in Baton Rouge this summer, as well as my Bite & Booze culinary director. She took the lead on cooking each pot of red beans throughout the trip and did a marvelous job. It’s nice because we really both cook ours the same way, so we feed off of each other’s cooking really well.

For Louisianians, making and eating red beans & rice is a ritual, and is often paired with must-have seasonings and go-to sides. What are yours?

I find that red beans need a little hot sauce. The vinegar gives a little acidity that the earthy beans need. We brought Slap Ya Mama’s Cajun Pepper Sauce on the tour with us, and people loved it. Of course, you also need a good Louisiana rice to serve red beans over. We use Supreme Rice out of Crowley, Louisiana. Their long grain white rice is perfect for red beans, gumbo, or any other dish you’re serving over rice. I also love a little corn bread with my red beans, too!

What was your favorite part about Jay D’s Red Beans & Rice Tour of Texas?

Making friends with all the people that I got to meet along the way! I met so many new people in each city, and I’m really glad I got to be out and about throughout so much of Texas. I also really liked being able to connect with old friends from my high school and college days who are scattered around Texas now!

What did folks like best about the tour?

It seemed like the red beans themselves were one of the biggest hits from our tour. People gobbled them up at every stop. It was nice to bring some authentic Louisiana flavor to deep in the heart of Texas. We met people who were eating Louisiana red beans for the first time and people who grew up on red beans but hadn’t had them in ages. It was nice to see their reaction as they tasted a part of their childhood again.

What’s next for Jay Ducote?

What’s next is always a good question! I’m giving a TEDxLSU talk on March 11th about my Single Origin Coffee project with beans from a small community in the Dominican Republic. We’re also working on launching my first restaurant concept, Gov’t Taco, which will be a modern American taco shop in White Star Market in Baton Rouge, opening this summer. I’m always hoping to have more travel and TV appearances in the future, so hopefully some big things will happen there, too! It’s a pretty crazy journey that I’m on. If anybody wants to follow along, you can find me at jayducote.com, Twitter, Instagram and Facebook!

Louisiana Kitchen and Culture offers a unique view of the culinary culture and heritage of all of Louisiana. Susan said, “Chefs do a lot of writing for the magazine. Subscribers want to read about what inspires them in the kitchen, how they came to be a professional chef, all in their own voice rather than via a generic interview.”

Growing up 100 miles east of New Orleans, Susan knows great Southern cooking and how important the food is to everyone there. “Food is ingrained into our culture down here. We sit down to eat and, while critiquing what’s on our plate, we talk about what we had for dinner the previous night and what we’re going to eat for our next meal.”

She has a love for the culinary scene of New Orleans and Louisiana and it shows in her work with the magazine and in being an outspoken ambassador encouraging people from all over the country to visit Louisiana. She knows that even when you visit, a piece of you stays and a piece of Louisiana goes with you!  With Louisiana Kitchen & Culture Magazine you can continue to have the culture and heritage of this unique place sent right to your doorstep with excellent stories, wonderful recipes and great cooking tips no matter where you’re at.  If you love Creole and Cajun cooking, you’ll love this magazine!

I asked Susan, “How Do You Red Bean?”

1. Where’s your favorite place to order red beans and rice in New Orleans?
Coop’s on Decatur in the French Quarter. It’s a dive bar you’d never think to go into just passing by, but they make a mean pot of red beans and rice.

2. If you make your own, what do you put in it, anything different or unique? Do you use dried beans or canned beans?
Dried beans, Camellia brand specifically (the best, read the feature story on the company in the May/June 2014 issue of Louisiana Kitchen & Culture, order them shipped to you if your local grocery doesn’t carry the brand), and I soak them overnight. LK&C culinary media director and C.I.A.-trained chef David Gallent does not; it’s part of the ritual with me, though. I think the pre-soaked bean produces a creamier pot of beans. They need to cook low and slow, 3 to 4 hours. You’ll know they’re ready to go when the liquid in the pot turns into a natural, creamy gravy. My basic recipe is here, but I add ham hocks or a ham bone if possible.

Two summers ago, when hurricane Isaac was looming in the Gulf of Mexico, I took stock of my freezer to see what I could cook vs. lose in the inevitable power failure — I had all the makings for red beans, so I made a big batch the day before the storm was due. My husband made sure both propane tanks were full for our gas grill, and moved it under shelter. As it turned out, the storm stalled after the eye came ashore, and sat over us for 36 hours. Our power was out from Tuesday early until Sunday afternoon, and I ended up being cook for a lot of our neighbors. We stacked up ice chests in my kitchen and pooled our resources; Wednesday morning everyone brought over their breakfast items and we cooked breakfast on the grill. Those beans lasted for three days, and several neighbors declared them the best they’d ever had. What got everyone talking, though, was the spectacular Bolognese sauce I produced on the grill Saturday night; you can only hold a piece of beef in melting ice so long. I cooked the roast down in a couple of quarts of my red sauce that was also in the freezer, boiled some pasta, made garlic bread, and sautéed broccoli with garlic and lemon, all on the barbecue grill. The side burner was a lifesaver; my kitchen is (unfortunately) electric. No power in south Louisiana in August means we were miserably hot, and the food was pretty heavy, but we ate every bite.

3. What do you eat with your red beans? Chicken, pork chops, turkey, salads, or do you put enough in it that you don’t need anything else?
My beans are hearty enough that, served over hot steamed rice, all I add is a salad or a platter of sliced tomatoes and cucumbers.

4. Do you only eat red beans and rice on the traditional Monday or is any day of the week alright?
Growing up, red beans were served on Mondays in the school cafeteria, and my baby sitter made them on Mondays. Since I soak overnight and simmer on the stove for several hours, it’s generally a weekend recipe. I make a big batch always, because leftovers freeze beautifully in quart-sized freezer bags. Those are pulled out for a quick, delicious dinner any night I don’t feel like (or have time for) cooking.

5. What are you working on now? Do you have anything coming out soon?
We’re putting the finishing touches on the July/August edition of the magazine, and, believe it or not, are planning the holiday issue and 2015. I wanted a cold pickled shrimp and vegetable concoction for the cover of July/August, and Chef Scott Varnedoe of Restaurant I.P.O. in Baton Rouge developed a recipe for me. We shot it last week; I couldn’t stop eating it after we were done. I swear, it’s some of the best food I’ve put in my mouth in a long time. I’ve got a family reunion in a couple of weeks; my family is in for a treat.

This past weekend I judged the Louisiana Seafood Cookoff; ten chefs from around the state competed and produced some outstanding food. As usual, though, the simplest dish won; Chef Aaron Burgau made a crawfish pasta dish that took first place. As this year’s King of Louisiana Seafood, he will go on to compete in the Great American Seafood Cookoff that will take place the first weekend of August, here in New Orleans during the Louisiana Foodservice Expo.

The previous weekend, I took Chefs Cory Bahr (Cotton, Nonna, both in Monroe), Austin Kerzner (Redfish Grill, New Orleans), Jason Brady (Wine Country Bistro, Shreveport), and Dustie Latiolais (Crawfish Town USA, Henderson) to Lake Chicot in Chicot State Park. We “camped” in deluxe cabins on the lake, the chefs fished, various locals cooked local specialties featuring the region’s smoked meats, and the chefs did a crawfish boil and fish fry. We worked hard and played harder; that story will be in the Sept/Oct issue of LK&C.

You can find Louisiana Kitchen & Culture Magazine at Barnes & Noble, Hastings, and Books a Million nationally, and at select newsstands and grocery stores throughout the south. Or, order it online; while you’re there, sign up for the free email newsletter published every Thursday morning, with recipes.

This story originally appeared on Red Beans & Eric and was written by Eric Olsson

Cooking has always been a part of Robert Medina’s life.  Like most kids in the Crescent City, he grew up around some great cooks.  He wanted to be in the kitchen helping out as the meals were being prepared, carefully watching the steps needed to cook and put a great meal on the table for the family.

After serving in the Navy and attending college, Robert worked a series of jobs that left him unfulfilled.  He wanted more.  Following his father’s footsteps, he joined the New Orleans fire department.  On his first day of work, he entered the kitchen, there was an older guy cooking a pot of gumbo.  “He asked me how the gumbo smelled. It reminded me of the smell from my grandmother’s kitchen. All of those aromas wafting around made my mouth water. It rekindled something I had forgotten about, how much I enjoyed cooking.”

Robert was no stranger to eating meals in the firehouse, even before he joined the fire department.  His father, uncle, and brother, who were all firefighters, were also cooks.  He wanted to get back into the kitchen, and not just help, but to cook the meals to feed those in his engine house.  For 24 years, Robert was a New Orleans firefighter.  In that time, he honed his skills in the kitchen.  He says that, “To this day, I stick with the credo that if you can satisfy a firefighter’s palate, you can satisfy anyone’s.”

Since retiring, Robert needed something new to do.  He kept cooking, but this time, instead of for firefighters at the engine house, he cooked for friends, family events, and at tailgate parties.  Any excuse to cook, he did.  He decided to put his recipes together in a cookbook to share his knowledge of New Orleans-style cooking.  He released “If You Can’t Stand The Heat: A New Orleans Firefighters Cookbook” in 2011 by Tate Publishing.  In the book, he shows all the step-by-step instructions you need to take all the guess work out of cooking so you have an excellent NOLA-style meal no matter where your house, or firehouse, is.

Besides writing cookbooks and recipes for his website, he also has a book of poetry, “FREEFALL,”  available and offers a line of Creole spices called New Orleans Original Firehouse Flashover Creole Seasoning.  It’s a spice blend that he has perfected over the years while cooking at the fire department.  Firehouse Flashover Creole Seasoning is sold in select stores in New Orleans and throughout the Gulf Coast.

I asked Robert Medina, “How Do You Red Bean?”

1. Where’s your favorite place to order red beans and rice?
I usually don’t order red beans when I’m out. I make them at home and as terrible as it might sound, I like my own. Maybe because I can control what goes into them. I have eaten many plates of beans and rice over the years. I spent 24 years on the fire department in New Orleans so I have had the privilege of sampling numerous versions of the bean. Some great and some not so great. Amazing how such simple ingredients can turn out so differently. If I were pressed to come up with a restaurant, Copeland’s, Acme Oyster House and of course Popeye’s come to mind.

2. Do you put any unique ingredients in your pot of red beans? Do you prefer dried or canned beans?
I only use dry beans and only Camellia. I have tried many others and they just don’t stack up. I want to add flavor to the beans so I take smoked ham hocks and boil them in chicken stock until the meat begins to fall off the bone. I use that meat along with pickle meat and Andouille along with the smoke infused chicken stock instead of water. Then, the usual ingredients along with a little shot of Tabasco.

3. What do you eat with red beans and rice?
Usually warm French bread and butter. Back at the fire house we always served them with fried pork chops. And not little wimpy thin ones. Thick chops. Those guys could eat.

4. Do you only eat red beans and rice on traditional Mondays or any day of the week?
When I was a kid, my mom always served them up on Mondays. Tradition. Today, I just make them when we feel like eating them. Often I will make them and let them sit in the fridge for a day or two. Maybe it’s a trick of the brain but it seems that for some reason beans get better after they have had a chance for all of those flavors to get to know each other.

5. What are you currently working on?
Still doing the occasional book signing and cooking demos. The first book was called “If You Can’t Stand the Heat… A New Orleans Firefighters Cookbook”.  About half way done on the second one. It will be called “If You Can’t Stand the Heat… Second Alarm”. We are also in the process of getting our Firehouse Flashover Creole Seasoning into stores. At the end of the month our new product comes out. Also fire related. Firehouse Backdraft Butt & BBQ Rub. Also teaching classes for corporate groups. It keeps me busy.

For more information on Robert Medina, you can follow him on Facebook, Twitter @MedinaLite or his author page.  You can find more information on his cookbook, product line of Firehouse Flashover Creole Seasoning, and recipes on his website.

This story originally appeared on Red Beans & Eric and was written by Eric Olsson

With Panderina Soumas, it’s all about her heritage. In fact, in her company’s tag line for Soumas Heritage Creole Creations, she points out that, “It’s ALL in the history.” It’s been a quest for her to not only promote and cook the Creole ways that is her heritage, but to also educate others about the unique culture.

Panderina started Soumas Heritage Creole Creations as a way to honor her ancestors. The company produces prepackaged Creole food mixes with a nod to the past and influenced by African and Caribbean flavors. The name of the mixes reflect what is unique with the Creole culture and that of south Louisiana. For instance, there’s the “Hoodoo You Wanna Voodoo” dip, “Jumpin’ da Broom” jambalaya, “Knock Knock, WHO DAT” dip, and the “Creole Gombo” to name a few. The gumbo is spelled after the African term for okra, ki ngombo, while the jambalaya is named after slave wedding ceremonies.

It’s all in the history, and it’s all being honored by Panderina. She loves to spread the word of her heritage. So much so that she has a program called, Gumbo CULTURE. With this “creative and universal learning through unique resources and education” system, she shares what is unique and diverse about the Creole culture through stories about the cuisine, food, legends, and of course, the history.  She intends to have fun while raising interest in what is the gumbo pot of culture in Louisiana.

And if that’s not enough, Panderina also caters. She’ll bring the Creole culture right to your kitchen – as long as you’re within an appropriate distance. However, if you order one of her fine Creole mixes online, have her cater your event or meet Panderina at one of the many cooking events she attends, you’ll sense the pride she has in her work, along with a new, deep appreciation for her heritage.  She’s not just cooking from her own culinary experiences, she is also pulling from her mother’s, grandmother’s, and great-grandmother’s experiences – remember, it’s ALL in the history!

I asked Panderina Soumas, “How Do You Red Bean?”

1. Where’s your favorite place to order red beans and rice?
I reside in North Louisiana now, unfortunately I have not found a place yet that has that south Louisiana, cultural Creole kick with red beans and rice here. In this area, some, if not most, and certainly not all, will have red beans and rice on their menu, but it’s actually pinto beans! I STILL CAN’T GET OVER THAT! Anyway, I’ve had them, most were tasty and well prepared, but’s its a cultural thang!

There’s a corner store name “The Brown Derby”, Uptown around Claiborne Ave and also a place called “Dunbars.” There’s an older/mature lady who cooks the food there. I’d say she has the BEST red beans and rice in New Orleans. According to my cousin, Chef Edwardo Soumas, if he’s not cooking them himself, he prefers hers. “I think she put her feet on the pot or somethin’.”

It’s the Mom~n~Pop places that have the BEST cultural cuisine. The big name, tourist marketed attractions are okay, but they are focused on “gourmet”, making it fancy and charging an arm, a leg and a couple of toes for that tourism dollar.

2. Do you put any unique ingredients in your pot of red beans? Do you prefer dried or canned beans?
Dried beans mostly. On quick/lazy occasions, I’ll pray and ask forgiveness from the Red Bean Gods and use a good canned version and doctor them up so much you really can’t tell. I just put the can way at the bottom of the trash can!

I use a lot of garlic and onions, especially garlic! When putting in my bell pepper, I use it all – seeds and stem. The stem can be taken out before eating, the seeds will just cook in the stock, you won’t even see them but they’re packed with flavor! I also use a lot of celery, all the leaves and that bottom part that most people throw away.  Wash it well, chop it up and throw it in.

I use several bay leaves. Most folks just use 1 or 2, I use 4 or 5.  Also, sometime to enhance the flavor, I’ll sprinkle a small amount of File’ powder and maybe a “careful drop” of liquid crab boil.  But know with those ingredients, use just a bit, they’re both very strong condiments. If used too much, it can ruin the red beans.

3. What do you eat with red beans and rice?
Mostly just sausage. On rare occasions I may have a few fried chicken wings with it!

4. Do you only eat red beans and rice on traditional Mondays or any day of the week?
I eat them any day of the week, I LOVE `EM! But mostly prepare a fresh pot on Mondays!

5. What does red beans and rice mean to you?
Oh my. A TREAUX remembrance of my New Orleans Creole Heritage! I remember hearing my great-grandmother in the kitchen early on Monday mornings sorting them out, choppin’ and dicin’ all the trinity, washin’ her pickled meat. Maybe cleaning off a ham bone from Sunday dinna’ and maybe dicin’ some sausage. My grandfather loved fried or smothered pork chops with his. All this as well as with my own mother {cooking red beans} in our family kitchen.

To order any of Soumas Heritage Creole Creations products, her cookbook, or for more information on catering, visit Panderina Soumas’ website at Soumas Heritage Creole Creations.  You can also find her on Twitter @thecreolelady and on Facebook.

This story originally appeared on Red Beans & Eric and was written by Eric Olsson

Anthony Scanio started out wanting to be an English teacher. But his love of New Orleans culture and cuisine guided him in a different direction. He enrolled in a college culinary arts program and began a career that took him from the Crescent City, through Italy, then back to the city he says he has a “love affair” with.

Anthony studied under James Beard award-winning chefs Donald Link and Stephen Stryjewski before finding a home with Emeril Lagasse at Emeril’s Delmonico. He started as a line cook in 2005, was promoted to sous chef in 2006, and then executive sous chef in 2009. Now, as the Chef de Cuisine, Anthony runs the kitchen and plenty of the behind the scene tasks that keep the restaurant one of the top food destinations in New Orleans.

Emeril’s Delmonico is a Creole-inspired restaurant in the Lower Garden District. It bases its food on a fresh, clean, ingredient-based approach to cooking while keeping the Creole heritage the focal point. As a life-long resident of New Orleans, Anthony has tapped into that knowledge of traditional old world Creole dishes but has added new modern touches, keeping the menu fresh and highly rated. His love for New Orleans and Creole cooking shines through in his work, and the customers of Delmonico love it!

I asked Anthony Scanio, “How Do You Red Bean?”

1. Where’s your favorite place to order red beans and rice?
My house or Monday staff meals here at Delmonico. I can’t recall the last time I ordered red beans and rice out at a restaurant. Ironically, as a chef I don’t get to eat out very often. As a kid growing up in Arabi, Popeye’s fried chicken was always accompanied by some red beans and rice. More than likely some dirty rice, too! Nevertheless, red beans seem like one of those quintessential home-style Creole dishes best enjoyed at home amongst family and friends. You know, “Come on over, I got a pot of beans on.” Of course, there are exceptions. At Delmonico, we offer a variation where the beans and rice are cooked together congri style. Essentially it is our version of the conrgi oriental served in eastern Cuba or the rice and peas of Haiti. In fact, our New Orleans red beans and rice probably descended from these versions via the Saint Domingue diaspora of the early 19th century. We naturally serve our congri with a pork chop. New Orleans pork chop and red beans and rice with a twist!

2. Do you put any unique ingredients in your pot of red beans? Do you prefer dried or canned beans?
Well, as I see it, if you’re using canned beans you ain’t making red beans. Now, on the other hand, at home I’m not opposed to using frozen bags of pre-cut trinity or Creole seasoning as you’ll see it labeled at the grocery store. (I’ve also been known to use frozen pre-cut okra at home for a pot of gumbo.)

As far as seasoning meat is concerned, the leftover ham bone is kind of legendary, almost mythical. I usually don’t have hambones lying around even if the flavor and creaminess they produce is indeed wonderful. Instead, I do like I learned from my mother and throw some smoked ham hocks into the pot. And like my Mama, I enjoy the fatty bits off the hock the best! So we have our smoke and our fat, but we still need some acidity, some vinegar. In short, I like to add some New Orleans style pickle meat to the pot as well. Finally, in addition to the usual seasonings such as thyme, bay leaf and cayenne, I like to add a little, just a dash really, of allspice to the pot. Not enough to taste but enough so that you know there’s a little something going on there.

3. What do you eat with red beans and rice?
I made a pot of red beans at the house last night. Red beans and rice and some French bread. Simple, perfect, inexpensive, delicious. That’s one of the great things about red beans and rice is that it is available to and enjoyed by everyone, rich or poor. Of course, red beans and rice are a staple at New Orleans get-togethers; surely, fried chicken or pork chops or some chaurice sausage are more than likely to be part of the pot luck. Likewise, lunching at a neighborhood café, it would be nice to accompany your red beans and rice with a pork chop or chaurice on the side. At Delmonico, you get your red bean and rice congri with a pork chop, baked bananas and a little rum jus.

4. Do you only eat red beans and rice on traditional Mondays or any day of the week?
Any day of the week is fine although with my schedule, Mondays and the occasional Sunday seem to be when I eat them. It is especially nice though to enjoy them on Mondays and participate in the time honored rhythms of the city.

You can find Chef Anthony Scanio at Emeril’s Delmonico, located at 1300 St. Charles Avenue, New Orleans, LA 70130, or by phone (504) 525 4937.  For additional restaurant information and a complete look at the menu, visit their website!

This story originally appeared on Red Beans & Eric and was written by Eric Olsson

The restaurant’s location is a little out of the box, also. You have to move past the regulars at the small Erin Rose bar, which is located at 811 Conti Street in the French Quarter, and beneath the sign with a skull and two crossed baguettes. There you’ll find either Cam or April working in the small kitchen. The two met while working together at Arnaud’s in the 1990s and have worked in some of the finest restaurants in New Orleans before coming up with the idea of non-traditional po’boy pop-up.

With all their experience and imagination, Cam and April crafted sandwiches you won’t find anywhere else.  Instead of serving the traditional fried shrimp, hot sausage or fall apart tender roast beef po’boy, topped with shredded iceberg lettuce and sliced tomatoes, you’ll find a Sweet Potato Po’boy with a black-eyed peas and pecan spread, pickled shallots and greens. You’ll also find the Seared Gulf Shrimp Po’boy with marinated carrot, daikon, cucumber, herbs, and a sriracha aioli; the Glazed Pork Belly Po’boy with NOLA rum and ginger can syrup, lime slaw and a garlic aioli; Grass-fed Beef Meatloaf Po’boy with bbq sauce, pickles and a housemade ranch; Jameson Grilled Cheese with aged cheddar and Jameson on a whole grain bread. Along with the changing daily specials, one of these may become your new “traditional” po’boy while in New Orleans.

The restaurant has been highly acclaimed since it opened. GoNOLA.com compares what Cam and April did with po’boys to what Antoines did with Oysters Rockefeller in 1899. It has also been compared to what Central Grocery did with the muffuletta in 1906 as well as what the Martin brother’s did with the original po’boy in 1929.

New Orleans Magazine named it one of the best places to get “cheap eats” in the city. Travel and Leisure said it has the best po’boy in New Orleans ranking the Coriander-Lime Gulf Shrimp Po’boy number one – ahead of all the traditional po’boys! BuzzFeed.com named the Roasted Sweet Potato Po’boy one of the “23 Truly Unbelievable Dishes Only Found In NOLA“.

I asked Cam Boudreaux, “How Do You Red Bean?”

1. Where’s your favorite place to order red beans and rice?
My favorite place to order Red Beans and Rice would probably be Popeye’s Fried Chicken, due to sheer convenience. I remember when I lived uptown, the Balcony bar used to have free red beans on Mondays. That was it for sure.

Also, local band King James and the Special Men serve an excellent pot of Red Beans and rice at their Monday weekly show at BJ’s bar in the Bywater.

2. Do you put any unique ingredients in your pot of red beans? Do you prefer dried or canned beans?
Dry Camellia brand beans of course. A very unique ingredient that my wife puts in our Red Beans is dried Fenugreek leaf. Shocker.

3. What do you eat with red beans and rice?
Hot sauce, green onions and when I was growing up, my mom used to serve minced white onions as a garnish on the side. Oh, and bread, French bread if possible, but even corn tortillas will do in a pinch. Carbs for the win! Also, the rice must be served on top. Never ever serve my red beans on top of my rice. Never.

4. Do you only eat red beans and rice on traditional Mondays or any day of the week?
Any old day of the week, we cook ‘em in a crock pot overnight so we get to smell ‘em cooking all night.

5. What are you currently working on?
We are currently working on having the best year ever at our wee po’boy shop!!!

For more information on Killer Po’boys and the current menu, you can visit their website at KillerPoBoys.com.  You can also find Cam and April on their Facebook page and on Twitter @killerpoboys. Killer Po’boys is in the back of the Erin Rose Bar at 811 Conti Street.

This story originally appeared on Red Beans & Eric and was written by Eric Olsson

She’s also passing on the culinary tradition of her family with her successful blog, RAISED ON A ROUX, where there are hundreds of recipes from the traditional New Orleans meals, Crawfish Mac ‘n’ Cheese, to Grill Ranch Chicken, Loaded Baked Potato Salad, along with tips for making a roux and a popular Finger Food Friday series.  With the blog, she’s able to honor her “ancestors by preparing their recipes and passing them on,” along with sharing the fact that “no matter where you are, you can be a New Orleanian.”  And that passion and wisdom shines through in her blog.

As the blog grew, Genet wanted to expand more on the unique customs of New Orleans that has made it one of the top destinations in the world.  She started RAISED ON A ROUX the magazine to celebrate the Crescent City.  The magazine, which is available on iTunes and for Android devices, is dedicated to family recipes, food traditions and life lessons from her New Orleans family.  It’s a deeper look into her New Orleans kitchen – the place where  you “share yourself with others by inviting them to your table for a home-cooked meal.”

I asked the popular food blogger, Genet Hogan, “How Do You Red Bean?”

1. Where’s your favorite place to order red beans and rice?
My favorite place to order Red Beans and Rice is at Popeye’s (the fast food fried chicken and biscuit franchise that began in New Orleans). They make the creamiest beans in town. No trip home is complete without hitting the Popeye’s drive-through at least once.

2. Do you put any unique ingredients in your pot of red beans? Do you prefer dried or canned beans?
I will not make a pot of red beans without Camellia Brand dried red kidney beans, the Holy Trinity (the Creole mirepoix of chopped onions, celery and green bell peppers) and pickle meat (brined pork shoulder also known as pickled pork). I also always throw in some type of smoked pork sausage. And let me share a little bit of dried red bean wisdom with you. My maternal grandmother believed, and I wholeheartedly agree, that the lighter (pinker) the beans the creamier the pot. So I always rummage through the store shelves and pick out the pinkest pounds of Camellia red beans I can find.

3. What do you eat with red beans and rice?
All that’s needed to round out my Red Beans and Rice meal is plenty of buttered French bread (for wiping the plate clean) and a few hits of Louisiana Hot Sauce.

4. Do you only eat red beans and rice on traditional Mondays or any day of the week?
I used to hold firm to the Monday tradition. But since moving to Atlanta, I cook and eat Red Beans and Rice whenever I long for the comforts of home.

5. What are you currently working on?
Right now, I’m working on moving my family back to New Orleans. My husband and I were trying to make that happen before this current school year began, but our timeframe was a bit too ambitious. So now we’re setting our sights on the summer of 2015, which will mark 20 years away from home–way too long!

In the meantime, I’ll be expanding the “Lagniappe” section of my website to include a running list of my favorite places to eat, drink and be merry. I’m also in the process of publishing another edition of Raised on a Roux, the Magazine, a fun extension of my website that’s available on the Apple newsstand for iPad, iPhone and Android users.

Stop by RaisedOnARoux.com and follow Genet’s wonderful blog.  You can also find her on Twitter @raisedonaroux, Facebook, and in the iTunes Newsstand Store with her magazine.

This story originally appeared on Red Beans & Eric and was written by Eric Olsson

New Orleans is a place for storytellers.  Ask anyone there, or even one outside of the city who simply loves it, and they’ll have some anecdote for you about the Crescent City.  The story can be about the food, the music, or the culture.  It can be a comedy, a tragedy, or an autobiography filled with fantasy, drama, and history.  But one thing you’ll undoubtedly hear in all the stories, for better or worse, is what New Orleans is really about.

One of New Orleans master storytellers is award winning writer, journalist, documentary filmmaker, and cookbook author, Lolis Eric Elie.  He has no problems talking about how much he loves his city or the problems that go along with it.  He once said in an interview with Larry Blumenfeld of Blogs.ArtInfo.com, “The city government values culture only to the extent that it can be sold. And they don’t particularly value the people who produce culture. And that’s the education that this and every administration in this city needs. People didn’t come back to this city for the opportunity to play for tourists. They came back because of what it felt like to be here, because of what it meant to be here, because of the way we live in this world. But the mayor seems to think that what’s important is that there be red beans and rice on the menu for tourists.”

He went on to say, “When politicians talk about using political power to make economic development happen they are not thinking about cultural development. What they miss is that I think you need to focus on those things you can’t get anywhere else, and enhance those things. Instead, they take them for granted.“

The New Orleans born writer wrote for the Times-Picayune newspaper for 13 years and was never afraid to speak his mind and make the readers think.  While working for the paper he wrote and co-produced the PBS documentary, “Faubourg Treme: The Untold Story of Black New Orleans“.  The award-winning film lead to Lolis landing a job as a staff writer and story editor for the HBO show, TREME, thus leaving the newspaper.  TREME was a dramatic series based on facts and actual events in New Orleans and the Treme neighborhood following Hurricane Katrina.

Lolis’ most recent cookbook, TREME: Stories and Recipes from the Heart of New Orleans, is based on the show.  It’s fiction and nonfiction stories inspired by the characters of the show. His previous cookbooks include a book on the culture of barbecue, Smokestack Lightning: Adventures in the Heart of Barbecue Country and he was the editor of Cornbread Nation 2: The United States of Barbecue.

He has also been a long-time contributor to the Southern Foodways Alliance.  On their webpage, he says, “Among our most original foods are those in the southern United States. And so my hope is to encourage that even further, so that our food is taken seriously as any other food.”

As you’ll learn from his writings in the TREME cookbook and his other work in the New York Times, Washington Post, Gourmet, Oxford American, Saveur, Bloomberg or just listening to him speak, he loves the food and culture of New Orleans and is considered an expert on the subject by many.  I had the chance to ask Lolis, “How Do You Red Bean?”

1. Where’s your favorite place to order red beans and rice in New Orleans?
I cook red beans so often, and you get them so often at receptions, parties and other events that I seldom order them in restaurants. I remember ordering them at Restaurant August on the first Monday they were open after the flood. That was symbolic, though, for the restaurant and the patrons.

2. If you make your own, what do you put in it, anything different or unique?  Do you use dried beans or canned beans?
I always use dried beans. It seems sacrilegious to me to use canned beans, though I know some true blue New Orleanians swear by their [canned beans]. I started putting smoked turkey wings in my beans at a point and I found I really liked that flavor. Pickle meat, smoked sausage, smoked turkey, all of that can work.

I don’t know of anything I put in that everyone else doesn’t put in—onions, garlic, celery, oil, bay leaf, bell pepper. Well, Habanero pepper. I like to combine black pepper and dried Habanero pepper.

Once, when I was a kid, I remember my mother made some red beans on a Saturday and I was eating them waiting for my father to come pick me up. I even remember the pot she was cooking them. What I remember most about those beans was the flavor of black pepper. I was a kid, so they couldn’t have been too hot.

I try to get the spice level so you can taste the pepper but you’re not reaching for the ice water.

3. What do you eat with your red beans?  Chicken, pork chops, turkey, salads, or do you put enough in it that you don’t need anything else?
I love red beans and fried chicken as a combination. Smothered chicken or pork chops can also be good. It’s funny though, my friend Bethany Bultman points out that folks put so much meat in the beans that it’s really like pork and red bean soup. To add another meat on top of that seems excessive now that we’ve discovered health concerns, etc.

4. Do you only eat red beans and rice on the traditional Monday or is any day of the week alright?
I always think about red beans and rice on Monday, but I cook them and eat them on any day that suits my fancy. My uncle Caston, who used to own Pack-A-Jug liquor store on Orleans Avenue used to say he wouldn’t eat red beans on Sunday. That screamed poverty to him. When they were coming in up Depression times, beans and the like were often the only dishes you could afford to have day to day. So, Sunday dinner was special and he couldn’t imagine eating beans on Sunday if he could afford not to.

I didn’t grow up in the Depression so beans don’t have that meaning for me. For me, beans are all about New Orleans or, by extension, the Creole world. I think about Haiti and Santiago de Cuba. I cook them whenever I want to raise the flag.

5. What are you working on now? Do you have anything coming out soon?
I’ve been living in LA, the land of 1,000 projects. I’m not up to 1,000 yet, but I’m getting close. I’ll reserve further comment until some of these trees bear fruit.

You can stay in touch with Lolis Eric Elie through his website, www.LolisEricElie.com, or follow him on Twitter @lolisericelie

This story originally appeared on Red Beans & Eric and was written by Eric Olsson

If you were into the rock and roll scene of the 1990’s you have probably heard of the band, Cowboy Mouth.  They had the catchy hit song, “Jenny Says” that played over and over on the radio all across the United States.  Paul Sanchez was one of the founding members of the band in 1990 and played with them up until 2006.

Since leaving the New Orleans based rock band, Paul has gone on to be a premiere singer, songwriter, producer, writer, musician and actor.  He played himself in the hit HBO show Treme and was the driving force in bringing the Dan Baum book Nine Lives to life with 39 original songs based on the book.  He has written songs for Darius Rucker of Hootie and the Blowfish, The Eli Young Band and even had a song covered by the Soul Queen of New Orleans, Irma Thomas!

From Paul’s website: “In January of 2010, OffBeat Magazine awarded Paul three Best Of The Beat Awards: Songwriter of The Year, Best Song Of The Year, Best Folk/Rock Album for Stew Called New Orleans, his duet record with friend and collaborator John Boutte. In April of that same year, Gambit Weekly awarded him Best Roots Rock Performer at The Big Easy Awards.”

Growing up in New Orleans, Paul knows a thing or two about red beans and rice.  So I asked him,
“HOW DO YOU RED BEAN?”

1. Where’s your favorite place to order red beans and rice in New Orleans?

I don’t order them at restaurants too often because I like to make my own red beans.

2. If you make your own, what do you put in it, anything different or unique? Do you use dried beans or canned beans?

I use Camellia Red Beans and can’t imagine using canned beans, though I most likely have eaten them and enjoyed them. I like red beans and rice, what can I say?

I use the Holy Trinity, but I go heavy on the onions and garlic. Chicken stock, water, and I put in some Tony Chachere’s, adding a little evaporated milk toward the end.

3. What do you eat with your red beans? Chicken, pork chops, turkey, salads, or do you put enough in it that you don’t need anything else?

I use Vaucresson Sausage in my beans, and I pan-fry the slices before I add them. I don’t usually make a side dish like chicken or pork chops. I often don’t even bother with rice, just eat the beans from a bowl.

I don’t always make salad every time, but if I do, I’ll put the beans right on top. 

4. Do you only eat red beans and rice on the traditional Monday or is any day of the week alright?

I only make them on Mondays; that’s tradition. I eat them two or three times a week because leftover beans are delicious.

5. What are you working on now? Do you have anything coming out soon?

I had throat surgery in November of 2018 and spinal surgery in January of 2019 where they had to move my vocal cords. I developed a neurological condition called vocal dystonia; I didn’t speak for nine months and didn’t sing for two years. 

I’ve gotten a lot of therapy since then and have had a lot of voice lessons, and my voice is getting stronger every day. 

During the pandemic, my wife bought me a piano to take my mind off my voice; I had never played before, but I taught myself to play and found myself drawn to learning the standards – Nat King Cole, Johnny Hartman, Sinatra.

I’ve now written an album full of Sinatra style ballads that I am planning to record in the next year.

For more information on Paul Sanchez, his music, books and where he’s playing, please visit his website www.PaulSanchez.com.  If you’re in New Orleans, make sure you check his website for concert dates.  He plays a show almost every week.  Don’t miss out on one of New Orleans finest musicians!
This story originally appeared on Red Beans & Eric and was written by Eric Olsson