This isn't your ordinary cookbook. It offers a historical, pictorial, and gastronomic tour of the plantations west of the Atchafalaya Basin in southern Louisiana. Local recipes rich in tradition celebrate Louisiana's diverse heritage. Dishes from Catahoula crab cakes to campstyle crawfish etouff'e are accompanied by vintage photographs portraying a culture that has withstood adversity and attracted admirers.

Anne Butler has led a life of diversity, with interests ranging from criminology to cooking, homes located from the East to the West Coast, and jobs ranging from plantation owner to writer. A native of New Orleans, Butler received her bachelor's degree from Sweet Briar College in Virginia and graduated from Humboldt State in California with a master's degree in English. Having worked as a journalist, writer, and editor, she has written articles for many publications, including the Los Angeles Times, Country Woman, New Orleans Magazine, and Country Roads. She has also written a number of fiction and nonfiction books based on her numerous interests and lifestyles. Wishing to share the history of Louisiana and of her own family, Butler operates a bed and breakfast on the Butler Greenwood Plantation, which dates to the 1790s. She claims to now know "just about everything there is to know about the area" and is spreading her knowledge farther through her award-winning children's books, travel books, and cookbooks. Her first cookbook, Audubon Plantation Country Cookbook, named Best New Cookbook of the Year by Louisiana Life magazine, includes history, humor, people, places, vintage photographs, and, of course, delicious recipes to create a wonderful view of life in Audubon plantation country. Butler's companion piece, Bayou Plantation Country Cookbook, offers the same wonderful mix of ingredients for the Louisiana bayou area. Louisiana Life describes her work as "an illustrated gastronomic tour of this area's society, culture, and economics . . . a veritable social history in the guise of a cookbook." Butler frequently speaks at a number of venues, including schools, churches, book clubs, and civic meetings, to discuss topics such as writing, running a bed and breakfast, historic preservation, and crime. She conducts historic tours combined with book reviews in her home and writing studio. A member of many organizations, such as the Louisiana B&B Association and the West Feliciana Historical Society, Butler has appeared on a number of television news and talk shows, including Court TV with Catherine Crier and the Sally Jesse Raphael Show. She lives in St. Francisville, Louisiana, and has two children, Chase and Stewart.

ISBN:	9781589804623
FORMAT:	Hardback
PUBLISHER:	Pelican Publishing
DATE:	11/27/2007
STATE:	Louisiana
SERIES:	Plantation Country
IMAGES:	211
PAGES:	256
DIMENSIONS:	8.5 (w) x 11 (h)