St. Martinville cookbook maven Marcelle Bienvenu has been busy this year. In addition to editing the Abita Brewery’s first ever cookbook, Abita Beer, Cooking Louisiana True, which just hit bookstores this month, she is co-editor of a new book issued by the Times-Picayune, Cooking up a Storm. Bienvenu is a long time contributor to the TP. Her column, "Cooking Creole," is famous for her colloquial style of talking about family recipes handed down from her mama and uncles, poking fun at her rakish husband Rock, and bringing the lively culture of Acadiana to the New Orleans readers, who generally don’t know a fig about Cajun culture.
After Hurricane Katrina hit, TP Food Editor Judy Walker was swamped with requests for old recipes from the paper that flooded residents had lost along with their cookbooks when their houses drowned. She created a column, "Exchange Alley," where readers wrote in and Walker responded with recipes from the paper’s archives. Ultimately, Walker and Bievenu compiled the best recipes into Cooking Up A Storm, available from the TP. Yesterday, National Public Radio interviewed Bienvenu on her role retrieving lost recipes. Naturally Bienvenu, a born story-teller, wound up talking about everything from cornbread to crawfish. You can listen to the interview here.
There will soon be a whole lot of shakin’ going on at Benny’s Sportshack Supplement Depot, a new concept by Opelousas native Benny Nele. Located at 2002 Johnston St., the supplement shop, smoothie bar and café, featuring hot off the press paninis and wraps, plans to open in late May.
Philip deMahy Sr., a once respected New Iberia ad exec, was sentenced May 2 to spend the next two years (he faced up to 100 years) in a state penitentiary after state and federal investigators found dozens of images depicting children engaged in lewd sexual acts on his personal computer.
This year’s Cool Town issue is all about people who are not native to South Louisiana but made a conscious decision to be here, to be among us, to participate in our culture and contribute to it.
A shelved ordinance transferring $200,000 from a northside drainage project to a south Lafayette development may not break any laws, but it stinks to high heaven.
An effort to restore a shuttered dancehall and document other vacant or razed honky-tonks could serve as a model for saving an endangered species of entertainment.
Lafayette’s gene pool has been host to a long line of eccentric characters who have blurred the lines between crazy, genius, disturbed and curiously entertaining.
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