New Orleans’ Women in the Culinary Arts are Doing THE BEST Things
In the spring Breanne Kostyk will open Flour Moon Bagels at 2606 St. Louis St. on the Lafitte Greenway I have followed this extremely talented baker for years and it is inspiring to witness her dream coming true.
Breanne acquired a degree in design from the Pratt Institute at the height of the Great Recession then joined Project M, a program employing creatives to benefit social change, placing them throughout the country. Her team ended up in impoverished Greensboro, Ala., where they were asked to build something—they did not know what, that was their challenge—that would unify people. They settled on pie. No matter that Breanne had never baked a pie in her life. PieLab, a combination pop-up cafe, design studio, and civic clubhouse, was successful in unifying a community around slices of pie and conversation and Breanne discovered she preferred making pie over working as a designer. She has been the Pastry Chef at the New Orleans’s Ace Hotel since it opened in 2016.
Other News
News
Women entrepreneurs: Continuing a legacy, creating new opportunities
March 22, 2023
By last year, Chef Dwynesha “Dee” Lavigne, a lifelong cook, was already a well-established culinary presence in New Orleans. She had worked in the industry for years, owned a pastry business and hosted a periodic cooking segment on WWL-TV.
News
Chef Dee Lavigne is following in Chef Lena Richard's footsteps
December 22, 2022
In February of 2022, Chef Dwynesha “Dee” Lavigne founded Deelightful Roux School of Cooking, following in the footsteps of her heroine, the late Chef Lena Richard. It’s been over eighty years since a Black woman has owned a cooking school in New Orleans, ever since Richard closed hers—the first—to pursue opportunities in New York City in the 1940s.
News
Meet the chef behind NOLAs’ African American-owned cooking school
September 26, 2022
Chef Dee Lavigne learned to cook at the age of seven. After a brief career in accountancy, she decided to ditch the world of spreadsheets and focus on her true passion: food. Now she runs the first African American-owned cooking school New Orleans has seen in over 80 years, whipping up Cajun and Creole classics for hungry travellers.
News
The Black Creole Chef Who Paved the Way for Food TV
May 19, 2022
A belated celebration of Lena Richard. In 1949 — more than a decade before Julia Child’s television debut — a boisterous Creole chef put on a cook’s uniform and made history.
