Eat To Your Heart’s Delight with Louisiana’s Culinary Tour

Thinking about traveling to our neighbor, Louisiana soon for Mardi Gras, Spring Break or weekend getaway? Why not try a Culinary Tour because what’s a road trip without good food.

Recently, the Bayou Block Party hit Houston at L’Colombe d’Or showcasing all the diversity of seafood and creative dishes from wild duck to crawfish and so much more.

If you’ve visited Louisiana, you know this is a culinary wonderland drawn from French, Spanish, African, Sicilian, Caribbean, Irish, German and American Indian cultures. There isn’t anything you won’t find here from a dash of country comfort and a pinch of sophistication.

Plan your visit for a CULINARY TOUR throughout the state at www.louisianatravel.com/culinary.

Here’s the map to coordinate your visit www.louisianatravel.com/culinary/map-trails.

• Creole Crescent: Come taste why New Orleans is lauded for some of the most inventive and delicious food in America
• Tammany Taste:  A feast of fresh produce and seafood prepared by culinary icons
• Capital Cravings Baton Rouge rallies local fare with worldwide flair
• Bayou Bounty: Make room for a spicy adventure
• Seafood Sensation: Riding the Gulf waters, Southwest Louisiana brings trails of fresh seafood and boudin
• Prairie Home Cooking: A scenic byway of vintage towns packed with homestyle cooking and dance halls
• Red River Riches: Clear your calendar for an epicurean journey and sample a global menu
• Delta Delights: Grab a map and head for the hills for a feast of southern delights

Also let’s go behind the scenes with one of Louisiana’s hottest chefs, Meg Bickford.

MEET MEG BICKFORD, Executive Chef at Commander’s Palace, who is the first female Executive Chef in the company’s rich 128-year history.

1. With your long history in the culinary field, how do you keep your recipes fresh?   

I think it’s good to have a balance, sometimes the recipes aren’t “fresh” but rather very old and the interpretation of them is what’s fresh. We have a very collaborative team here at Commander’s and that allows us a lot of creativity and freedom in the kitchen. Our co-proprietor, Ti Martin, and I talk about food all the time, she leaves me homework by way of magazine clippings, menus, ideas on post-it notes (sometimes I think she wishes she had taken the chef route). My team in the kitchen is close, inspiring, and inquisitive allowing us to be creative and explore.   

2. Talk about the crew at Commander’s Palace:    

The best part of my job is the people. The people that I’m fortunate to get to work with every day are constantly surprising, impressing, and inspiring me. Watching people grow and learn and have those “ah-ha” moments is really special. The people that we are fortunate enough to serve. We’re very lucky that we have such wonderful guests here at Commander’s and fostering the relationships of both internal and external guests is the most rewarding.  

The management team at commander’s is comprised of some of the most hard working and dedicated people I’ve had the pleasure to work with. Our operations team is a very collaborative group, constantly pushing our business to new heights and I am always impressed and proud with what we accomplish together.

3. How big was your family influence on your career and creativity? 

BIG!   Boiling seafood, shrimp, crabs, crawfish was always a big family affair. Fried oysters and oysters on the half shell are a Christmas eve tradition. My grandmother had a huge pecan tree in her front yard and gathering and cleaning the pecans was always something she and I did together. We would then make pecan pies, little hand-sized pies, I loved it and them. My mom’s roast beef, for poboys, is the best. Better than any roast beef I’ve ever had.  Getting to make that with her, as a kid, was a real learning experience. She still makes it better than I do.   

Watching my grandmother make blood stew was powerful. I still kick myself for not writing it down. We were at a family boucherie and she collected the blood from the hog and stewed it down into this rich black stew and served it over rice. Tasting that changed my life.  

4. What are some things you’re most proud of in your career? 

One of my proudest moments was reopening the restaurant after being closed during the Pandemic. I had just taken on the role of Executive Chef and being at the helm for our reopening was invigorating and inspiring. Going through the last two years with our team and achieving what we have is another proud moment – we took on new projects and turned them in to businesses: we now ship our food nationally through Goldbelly and sell food-to-go at Le Petit Bleu, our to-go market next door to Commander’s. These are brand new businesses that were born out of the necessity to keep our company going during the pandemic and have now become extremely important components of our success as we continue to ride out the pandemic.

5. Finally, what do you hope people take away after dining in your restaurant? 

I hope they take away a memory – a memory of our team making them feel special and welcome. We take our profession seriously and believe the way we serve our guests matters – the level of professionalism is important to us. Our guests have entrusted us with some of their most important special occasions – whether it be a surprise engagement or an 80th birthday dinner – our mission is to make each and every occasion the most memorable it can be and for our guests to feel pampered. And, of course, we want them to have fun…and we make sure of that with festive balloons on the tables, second line bands, and our immensely knowledgeable and hospitable team. We are in the business of creating dining memories!

Culinary Tour Photos: V. Sweeten