Bayou Born | Boston Tested | Charting Life in SoCal
I was raised inside Gulf Coast food culture, on shrimp boats, in working seafood ports, and at tables shaped by tide, weather, and season.
My father owned and captained the Sun Star, a wooden shrimp boat built by Landry Boat Works in Bayou La Batre, Alabama. We always had the same home in Bayou La Batre, but our lives followed the work. Other seafood towns like Golden Meadow and Delcambre were not destinations; they were routine. That is where my food memory was formed. Because of the time spent away at towns spread all over the northern Gulf Coast, I was even classified as a migrant in public school.
Southern is not something I perform. It is inherited. You can relocate it, ignore it, or try to outgrow it, but it resurfaces when you least expect it.
Sixteen years in Boston didn’t erase those roots. It clarified them. Distance didn’t change who I was. It made clear what mattered and what didn’t.
I’m cooking and writing about food that’s honest to where I’m from and true to what I know tastes good, whether that’s at my own stove, a restaurant I’ve never been to before, or someone else’s table entirely.