Author: Paul F. Stahls Jr.

Well Done

If you can still remember your New Year’s resolutions, it’s likely that one of them had to do with food. Perhaps it was a pledge to eat healthier, in which case the following recipes may be helpful. Not only are…

Rise and Dine

5 breakfast and brunch favorites that’ll stick to your ribs day or night

My Oh My Cakes and Pies

The holiday season is also the baking season, the time when many who never bake do so nonstop. I would wager that the sales of flour, sugar, butter, eggs, vanilla, shortening, nuts, dried fruits and all the other essentials skyrocket…

Claws To Celebrate

6 recipes for our native Blue Crab, plus a side order of local crustacean history

Sinners & Saints

There are times to indulge and, alas, times to eat in moderation. Times when we throw caution to the wind and times when we dial it back a bit. Periods of riotous celebration give way to sobriety, excess to something…

A Fresh Take On Nostalgic Recipes

It’s difficult to imagine such a thing, but we may be witnessing a revival of the 1950s. Anyone who lived through those years will wonder how or why this is possible, but those who are too young to have been…

Garden Fresh

how to grow these springtime staples, plus three light & easy recipes the new year off right

Garden to Table

This is the time of year to plant beets, carrots and potatoes in anticipation of all the earthy flavors we’ll enjoy a few months down the road. The days when beets were predictably red, carrots were always orange and potatoes…

Summer’s Bounty

Fresh vegetables are abundant in these long summer days. Fortunately, so are recipes for them.

Slice of life

Go beyond peanut butter with gourmet sandwiches that deliver on flavor without heating up the kitchen.

Jambalaya

Along with gumbo, jambalaya is one of the most famous and emblematic dishes of Louisiana cooking. Like gumbo, jambalaya can contain a multitude of ingredients from land and sea in combinations that vary greatly from one cook to another. The…

Heads Up

Even people who don’t like seafood love shrimp.In one preparation or another, shrimp appears on menus all over the country. It’s a restaurant staple as ubiquitous as steak and much more versatile. Shrimp can be cooked just about any way…

Chosen Frozen

Early last summer, after paying $4 for a pint of ice cream, I did a quick mental calculation and was horrified to realize what I might spend over the next few months feeding my habit. So I bought a small…

Complementary Cast

I want foods to taste like themselves, but I also enjoy dishes that are a synthesis of many ingredients, some of which are not readily identifiable. Often it is those supporting elements that round out and enrich the principal ingredient…

Traveling Gournet: Radical Gumbo

Not long ago, four couples were having drinks before dinner, chatting about this and that while nibbling on almonds roasted with smoked paprika and homemade bread with cheeses. As often happens, the discussion turned to food and cooking, and from…

Louisiana pies

If you bake pies you may have experimented with different recipes to find your ideal crust. I know I have. I can’t begin to remember how many ingredients, combinations of ingredients and techniques I’ve tried over the years. I’ve used…

Louisianians Barbecue too, ya’ll

Barbecue is so deeply ingrained in the psyche of the South that natives from North Carolina to Texas will argue heatedly and endlessly about the merits of their local barbecue traditions. But Louisiana usually gets left out of the conversation.…

A WINTER MENU

Restaurants open, close and change so frequently that even the most conscientiously researched restaurant guides are usually a bit dated when first published; and it’s all downhill from there. Relying on a guide that’s a year or two old can…

Soups in Short Order

Fall often brings some of our nicest weather. Unless we have a hurricane, you can almost hear the entire state breathe a great sigh of relief when the summer heat finally breaks. With clear blue skies, lower humidity and some…

Campside Cooking

Weekend Favorites When I was finalizing a move back to Louisiana from New York 15 years ago, I told friends that the house I had found was originally built as a camp. Initially, it didn’t occur to me that “camp”…

Soups for the Season

I love all kinds of cooking and baking, but there is no kitchen task I enjoy more than making soup. The very process of combining a variety of ingredients in a single pot, letting them simmer while their flavors meld,…

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