Explore Pelican Publishing (September 2024)

Dooky Chase’s Restaurant, a New Orleans landmark and celebrated bastion of fine Creole food, has welcomed notable individuals as well as thousands of locals through its doors since opening in 1941. The unquestionable authority in the restaurant’s kitchen for many of those years, Leah Chase offers here a collection of recipes from the menu and her personal files that have delighted patrons for decades.

Spiced with exquisite works from the African American art collection that hangs in the restaurant’s dining room, this cookbook pairs the flavors of Leah Chase’s dishes with anecdotes recounting the restaurant’s traditions, origins of the recipes, and memories. This revised and expanded edition presents even more of the restaurant’s favorite offerings and features a new chapter on drinks. Dooky Chase’s longtime chef and proprietor passed away in 2019, but these pages honor Leah’s legacy through recipes and sentiments that will be forever intertwined with the history of New Orleans.

Puerto Rican Cookery has become the standard reference on traditional native cookery (cocina criolla). According to the San Juan Star, "the cookbook is seen and is more likely better read in some homes than the religious tome. . . . [it] is considered a primer for beginning cooks . . . a textbook for home economists and it is a guide for the gourmet as well."

Since 1899, Vaucresson’s Sausage Company has produced its beloved brand in the Seventh Ward of New Orleans. Julie Frederick Vaucresson shares stories from the Vaucresson and Frederick families along with scores of recipes using both the sausages and a new line of mustards. Also included are classic dishes from the fabled Bourbon Street Vaucresson Café Creole (circa 1963-1972) along with other homestyle recipes from the Frederick family, with color photographs of many of the recipes.

In these classic, fascinating, and often terrifying tales--Mardi Gras Indians, Baby Dolls, the Zulu King, Loup Garou, and the headless horseman of Natchitoches--all share the stage. Ghost stories from around Louisiana mingle with the true horrors of figures such as the infamous New Orleans Axeman. Learn stories of the Creoles and Cajuns, Southern church traditions, Voodoo rituals, hexes, and charms.  Gumbo Ya-Ya, everybody talks at once, expresses the tension between refinement and profanity, the sacred and the sensual--which defines Louisiana culture to this day. This 80th Anniversary Pelican Publishing unabridged edition's contents are wholly true to the 1945 original edition. First commissioned as a project of the Works Progress Administration Louisiana Writers' Program, it has stood the test of time and is a book beloved by historians, locals, and visitors.

Chef Jason Smith is back at it, providing you with more of his one-of-a-kind Country Bling recipes. The Kentucky native, known for his glitzy wardrobe, colorful expressions, and award-winning recipes, is thrilled to present his second cookbook, which focuses on decadent confections, using eight ingredients or less.

The recipes in this book have been developed to encompass everything that makes a decadent dessert; whether you like sweet, salty, tart, savory, silky, crunchy, chewy, creamy, frozen, fried, or chilled; you are promised to have a lip-smackin’, eye-rollin’ experience with each recipe.

It was Chef Jason’s flair for taking all of the above considerations when making tasty confections that shot him into the national spotlight, when he competed on and won Food Network’s Holiday Baking Championship, season 3; and Holiday Baking Championship—Kids vs. Adults, 2016. He continued to parlay his talents in the sweet and savory, by competing on and winning Food Network Star, season 13. Chef Jason has appeared as a judge and competitor on several national network food shows, and has had the honor of participating on The GOAT, an Amazon Prime reality show.

With all his accolades, he considers the privilege of sharing his love of food through his cookbooks to be his greatest accomplishment.