Junior League of Baton Rouge – Hungry for Louisiana

Holiday, Hungry for Louisiana, Louisiana, Vegetables

Spinach Madeleine’s Yummy Back Story

Last week, on my 225 Magazine food blog, Spatula Diaries, I posted about Spinach Madeleine, the iconic spicy spinach side dish that helped make the Junior League of Baton Rouge’s River Road Recipes one of the best selling community cookbooks of all time. The dish has a great story arc. It was invented on the spot, became wildly popular and was thrown into confusion when one of its key ingredients, Kraft’s jalapeño cheese log, was discontinued.

In 2011, I had the pleasure of interviewing its creator, Madeline Wright. Here’s that story, which ran in 225 in 2011.

Fresh from the Gulf, Oysters, Southern, Super Bowl

Super Bowl Sunday: River Road Recipes’ Oysters Fitzpatrick Gets Saucy

Oysters are the perfect addition to the 2015 Super Bowl party menu, both as a nod to two seafood-centric coastal locales, New England and Seattle, and to our own Gulf oyster season still underway here in South Louisiana. For parties, I like to serve them baked or grilled on the half-shell, and for the Super Bowl in particular, adding bacon and barbecue sauce makes them festive and football-y. Pretty sure that’s a word this week.

One of my all-time favorite oyster recipes is Oysters Fitzpatrick from the Junior League of Baton Rouge’s 1959 food bible, River Road Recipes, but here I’ve reworked it with a locally made barbecue sauce, Jay D’s, made by my friend and fellow food writer/blogger Jay Ducote (BiteandBooze.com).