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38 MYROUSESEVERYDAY JULY | AUGUST 2015
W hen it came out in 2008, “Cooking
Up a Storm: Recipes Lost and
Found from The Times-Picayune” struck
a chord with people still recovering from
Hurricane Katrina and the devastating
floods that followed.
More than just a
collection of 250
of the best New
Orleans dishes, the
cookbook tells the
love story between a
city and its culinary
culture. It was a
collaborative labor of love created by The
Times-Picayune | food editor
Judy Walker, food columnist Marcelle
Bienvenu and their readers.
When Walker became food editor at The
Times-Picayune in 2004, she started a
weekly column called Exchange Alley. In
the column, which continues today, she
publishes recipes in response to readers’
requests and shares their queries.
After the storm and flood,the column became
a lifeline for home cooks, who lost recipe
collections that were precious to them — not
just as cooks,but as locals.The Exchange Alley
Shrimp Creole Serves 4 - 6
WHAT YOU WILL NEED
4 tablespoons butter
2 tablespoons all-purpose flour
1½ cups chopped onions
1 cup chopped bell peppers
¾ cup chopped celery
3 garlic cloves, minced
2 bay leaves
2 cups peeled, chopped fresh tomatoes or
2 cups canned, chopped with their juice
1 cup shrimp stock* or chicken broth
1 teaspoon salt
¼ teaspoon cayenne
2 pounds medium shrimp, peeled and deveined
2 teaspoons chopped parsley
HOW TO PREP
Combine the butter and flour in a medium-heavy
pot over medium heat. Cook, stirring, to make a
blond roux, 5 to 6 minutes. Add the onions, bell
peppers, celery and garlic. Cook, stirring, until the
vegetables are soft and lightly golden, 8 to 10
minutes.
Add the bay leaves, tomatoes, shrimp stock, salt,
and cayenne. Simmer, uncovered, for 30 minutes,
stirring occasionally. Add the shrimp and cook until
they turn pink, 3 to 4 minutes.
Remove the bay leaves. Add the parsley and serve
over rice.
*To make shrimp stock, combine shrimp shells
with water to cover in a saucepan. Add aromatics,
such as celery or a piece of onion or the peels from
onions, if you wish. Bring to a boil, then lower heat
to simmer for 15 minutes. Strain.
column became a public service for residents
of Louisiana and Mississippi seeking to
reclaim what they had lost.
Out of that reader recipe exchange came the
idea for the book. Judy Laine, who said she
“lost everything” to
the storm, wrote to
Judy Walker saying:
“I know I am not
the only one who
lost all their recipes
and recipes books. I
was thinking maybe
you could come
up with a cookbook of all the recipes you
printed over the years.”
The memo that Judy Walker wrote that day
to her editors started the process of creating
“Cooking up a Storm,” which took nearly
three years to complete, working with
Bienvenu, author of the popular “Cooking
Creole” column, which has run in The
Times-Picayune for more than 30 years.
A new hardcover edition of the
Cooking up a Storm will be re-
released on Aug. 18th. An electronic
database of thousands of recipes is
also available at
Crawfish Pie (Photo by G. Andrew Boyd, |
The Times-Picayune)
Shrimp Creole (Photo by
Dinah Rogers,
| The Times-Picayune) Cooking
Up a Storm
“A survivor would write in to mourn the
loss of a recipe for mirliton casserole with
crab meat, and another reader would
supply it. It was one small way people
could help.​” —Judy Walker
the Anniversary issue