Tuesday, January 1, 2008

Welcome to Sauce Piquante!

Sauce Piquante is a food blog written by a 35-year-old Louisiana girl who lives in the Greater Atlanta area with her husband, her sassy toddler and a bipolar hound mix. Though the author has made a living reporting and writing stories for a variety of national publications, she has not penned a word about her one great passion – food.

That changes today.

But first, a few things you should know:

The author is not a professional chef. She has degrees in journalism and history, which means she is only qualified to give you a run for your money on Trivia Night at your local bar. (By the way, you’ve got first round…) So why read this? Why not read it? The author knows some pretty good kitchen tricks, thanks to an endless array of zealous roux-making relatives, assorted cooking classes and a willingness to sit in the kitchen and learn from her mistakes.

This blog is not necessarily about all things Southern or Cajun/Creole/Louisiana, even though the author’s culinary worldview was formed by a childhood of eating gumbos, jambalayas and etouffees. At Sauce Piquante, you’ll see some Asian and African fare, some Latin and Southwestern dishes, even some European and Middle Eastern cuisine, too. Why? Because classic Southern food is not just packed with global influences, but cosmopolitan Southerners – those happy-go-lucky folks thought to be eating nothing more than gravy-soaked this, or super-smothered that -- are embracing dishes from all over the map. Here we hope to explore that vitality whether it’s expressed in a soul food tapas restaurant in Atlanta or a Lebanese bakery in Baton Rouge.

The recipes you’ll see here are the author’s best approximation of what she does, chop by chop, sprinkle by sprinkle, and so forth. After all, she views recipes as a suggestion, not a mandate, so laisser les bons temps rouler.

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