Mar-Apr2016_Final-FlipBook

AT SEASON’S PEAK

Sippin’ On S trawberries by Nora D. McGunnigle S pringtime in Louisiana means strawberries in all forms, including a variety of strawberry flavored beers. Abita’s most popular harvest seasonal, Strawberry Harvest Lager, is brewed with pilsner and wheat malts and Vanguard hops. Real Louisiana strawberry juice is added after filtration. The lager’s crisp drinkability and 4.2% ABV strength makes it just right for crawfish boils. Every year’s batch, although brewed with the same recipe, is a little different because of the natural variations in the annual strawberry crop. Abita created the beer specifically for Louisiana’s popular Ponchatoula Strawberry Festival in 2004 (Rouses is a sponsor of the festival again this year). Distribution in bottles began in 2006, on draft in 2014, and in cans in 2015. Neighboring brewery Covington Brewhouse created its own 5% ABV Strawberry Ale, which is available in kegs and six pack bottles all year round at Rouses in Louisiana, Mississippi and Alabama. Covington’s brewmaster adds rich strawberry puree to the light cream ale.The resulting pink-tinted beer is one of Covington’s best known and loved, its first departure from the German styles that the brewery is known for. A third option is an organic import from Great Britain’s historic Samuel Smiths Brewery.As part of a larger line of fruit beers (including cherry, apricot, and raspberry), the Organic Strawberry Fruit Beer is made with organic barley, wheat, and strawberry juice. The beer actually starts the brewing process at All Saints Brewery using antique steam brewing equipment before being sent back to Samuel Smith’s Tadcaster facility to blend with the organic strawberry juice before being bottled and sent to beer lovers all over Europe and the United States.

Rouses downtown market. Named after Fields’ grandmother, Willa Jean combines fine dining with a wonderful world of baked goods, many of which are overseen by her colleague pastry chef Lisa Marie White. And while there’s less time to play with flavors these days, Fields ’ fondness for strawberries focuses on the classics, with a few very simple (but unexpected) twists. Her favorite? “Shortcake. And I’m a purist,” she shoots back. Simple and quick. “I love it because it’s like a dessert version of gumbo. Everybody loves it and everybody’s mama does it different. People really get fired up about shortcake.” “I grew up loving the little spongy shortcake cups. They’d just soak up all the macerated juices. It was one of my favorite foods.These days I do a slice of good pound cake warmed up on the griddle with butter. Strawberries, and whipped cream with a little white chocolate. At Willa Jean, we’re working with a bowl-shaped mold to get the pound cake in that old-school shape. Even the classics can be an experiment.” As for reading the season, she likes the strawberries from such locally famous areas as Ponchatoula, the self proclaimed “Strawberry Capital of the United States.” Rouses is opening a new store there in April. While Louisiana strawberries are in season, Fields will put them in just about everything — in cobblers, compotes, purees, preserves and ice creams. But she’ll also indulge in a little trick she learned from the French — perfectly ripened berries dragged through a dish of cool, softened butter. (It’s also a traditional way to eat radishes in France.) The smoothness and the flavor of the berries shine through, with just a little richness to complement the tangy juices. Louisiana Stawberries For dedicated fans of the Louisiana strawberry,

Kelly Fields — photo courtesy Rush Jagoe

P astry Chef Kelly Fields is a true strawberry aficionado. “When we were growing up, my mom grew most of our produce in the garden, including strawberries.My dad loved making ice cream, sowe’dhand-crank ice creamwith strawberries in spring, then peaches in the summer.” The simple delights of homegrown berries followed her past culinary school and into a few years working in San Francisco, where mild weather results in a nearly year-round strawberry season and extended flavor palette. Fields’ years working as pastry chef in high end restaurants allowed for plenty of experimentation and appreciation of complementary flavors. She enthusiastically rattles off a half-dozen flavors that play well with strawberries. “Peaches, of course. Peppercorns — black or pink. Elderflowers bring out the floral notes in a good strawberry. What else …Sassafrass! One of my cooks at Restaurant August combined strawberries with root beer and it was just fantastic.” For years, this kind of experimentation was part of Fields’ stock and trade in the kitchen. As pastry chef of Restaurant August, she had the space to develop complex desserts and push her own boundaries as chef. Now, as the Executive Pastry Chef for the entire John Besh Restaurant Group, Fields oversees the bread and pastry programs for eleven different properties across New Orleans. She also runs the kitchen as partner of the newest Besh enterprise — Willa Jean — a restaurant/bakery hybrid in the South Market section of New Orleans Central Business District that’s catty corner from

now is the best time of the year. With truly hot weather a few months away, Rouses produce departments are

All three beers exemplify different techniques and approaches to create a light, balanced, and refreshing beer that provide clean strawberry flavor, either from across the pond in England or across Lake Pontchartrain in Covington and Abita Springs.

filled with the telltale pints and flats of sweet berries, deep crimson and bursting with juice .

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