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56
MY
ROUSES
EVERYDAY
JULY | AUGUST 2015
the
Anniversary
issue
A
searing 101 degrees — that’s the temperature registered
by the thermometers living in most chefs’ left shoulder
pockets at this time of year, when the trenches of South
Louisiana kitchens are tempered à la Dante’s Inferno.
When I enter the much cooler 85-degree kitchens of Nicholls State
University’s Chef John Folse Culinary Institute, where the students
know me as Chef Monica Larousse, I wear my chef ’s whites and
thermometer proudly, ready to instruct culinary labs that last as long
as the day’s recipe requires. For some culinary students, the lessons I
share in these labs are the introduction to techniques they will use for
the rest of their lives, both in their professional and private kitchens.
My role as educator doesn’t end with the Chef John Folse Culinary
Institute. As a mother to two beautiful
girls and wife to a professional chef, I am
challenged constantly to give my best both
at home and at the university. What keeps
me going is the realization that I get to live
the dream that I have spent over 20 years
working tirelessly to achieve while always
being surrounded by a culinary-minded
family. It’s a unique lifestyle, and unique
lifestyles tend to attract curious questions.
“Where do y’all shop for groceries?” I get
asked most often. My instinctive reply is a
no-brainer: “Rouses, where the chefs shop.”
Much like the culinary institute and Nicholls, Rouses has evolved
over the years, especially since the market opened its first café.
Rouses is always my first stop to shop no matter the length or
variety of my scribbled shopping list. It’s where I buy comfort food
for my family and lunch prepared by some of South Louisiana’s
best chefs, who happen to be Nicholls culinary alumni and students.
Rouses carries the freshest local produce and trendy groceries,
while consistently supplying local restaurants and our own culinary
institute’s classroom operations with top-notch ingredients.
As you can tell, Rouses and the Chef John Folse Culinary Institute
feed my soul and passion, and Nicholls provides me the opportunity
to influence young, aspiring chefs. These students, in turn,
unknowingly influence culinary evolution through their expressions
in the kitchen and desire to ingest any morsel of information that is
fed to them. It is this fervency that has joined Rouses and Nicholls
in creating a partnership that continues to yield innovative, one-of-
a-kind opportunities for students at the culinary institute, located
in the heart of the Bayou Region.
The small town of Thibodaux, where Rouses and Nicholls call home,
provides a bountiful natural pantry and deep-rooted Cajun-Creole
culture, making it the ideal community in which to immerse culinary
students in the art of cooking the Louisiana way. Even Jimmy Buffett
knows Thibodaux is a special town. His lyrics to “I Will Play for
Gumbo” suggest he has had a good roux or two: “A piece of French
bread with which to wipe my bowl, good for the body, good for the
soul ... you should never know when you’re gonna get it next, at
midnight in the Quarter or noon in Thibodaux.”This joie de vivre is
part of a Nicholls student’s daily life. It is also what attracts renowned
regional and international chefs to visit the Chef John Folse Culinary
Institute, only a short 45-minute drive from New Orleans. Being
so close to such a large culinary and cultural Mecca means Nicholls
culinary students are able to acquire externships and employment in
some of the country’s finest kitchens, all while pursuing a Bachelor of
Science in culinary arts — the first degree of its kind in the country
and the only one currently offered in Louisiana.
Getting into dream kitchens starts by clocking countless hours in the
six kitchens of the Chef John Folse Culinary Institute, which recently
moved into the new 33,000-square-foot Lanny D.Ledet Culinary Arts
Building on the Nicholls campus.This state-of-the-art facility opens to
Nicholls’300-plus culinary students inAugust and upholds the culinary
institute’s fine tradition of educating and developing the industry’s next
leaders in a region that maintains respect and appreciation for the
Cajun-Creole tradition,amission that began in 1995when the institute
was founded, incidentally over a
few bowls of gumbo.
Speaking of gumbo, the classic
Louisiana-style soup isn’t a
cooking technique, but a way
of life, one of the important
concepts that Chef John Folse
Culinary Institute students come
to learn while receiving a quality
liberal arts college education at
Nicholls. Hey, at least all that
learning no longer takes place in
a 101-degree kitchen.
Gettin’
Schooled
on Food
by
Monica Larousse