Author: Emily Gautreaux

Tips for Smart, Safe 2020 Holiday Travel

In a year like 2020, the warmth, community, food, and chance to travel that the end of the year holiday season brings is seen as a highly-needed break from the daily stresses of life.  However, now more than ever, caution must be taken to ensure an enjoyable, yet safe holiday season transpires.  Travel Pulse has compiled several steps travelers can take for safe 2020 holiday travels.

Monitor Your Destination Early and Often

While there are expected to be far fewer crowds than in previous years and simply no shortage of deals to be snagged for flights and resort stays, travelers shouldn’t be swept up in the excitement that a reunioning gathering of loved ones could generate, as the latest travel restrictions, quarantine orders and health and safety guidelines of your destination should be regularly monitored. So, as you are holiday shopping and planning, be sure to research what your destination requires of its incoming travelers, as some places are requiring visitors to self-isolate for a minimum of fourteen days, if they are hailing from a “hotspot,” while others are asking visitors to complete health questionnaires and/or submit a negative coronavirus test result prior to entry. As a general rule of thumb, as this tip is the most serious, travelers at a higher risk of severe illness should avoid areas with high infection rates or, at the very least, exercise extreme caution.

Purchase Travel Insurance

Sure it’s often ignored, skipped over, or hastily signed, as a traveler focuses more on the type of seat getting them to the destination rather than the worse implications, but travel insurance shouldn’t be taken for granted this year. It’ll be a great idea to research some travel insurance policies prior to departure or booking, as the right choice in policy could cover medical costs and even medical transport back home, in the event of a passenger becoming severely ill, whether or not due to the pandemic. In fact, look into your specific destination, because many resorts, such as Sandals are offering complimentary travel insurance to their guests for an added layer of flexibility and peace of mind in these times.

Wear a Face Mask

This travel accessory that for many was first observed in international airport terminals should not be overlooked this year, as it has become one of the most effective tools in the fight against all viruses, not to mention that its utilization has become a requirement in most places such as airports, airplanes, hotel lobbies, bars, restaurants, and indoor attractions. It’s suggested that those choosing to travel for the holidays embrace face mask culture or choose to stay home. So, plan ahead! Coordinate masks with your traveling party or commission some personalized masks; just be sure to pack several, ensuring a clean, effective, and stylish accessory every time.

Actively Practice Social Distancing

Ignoring the pandemic, nothing is worse than anticipating a trip for months or weeks, packing, stressing about getting to the airport on time, and getting sneezed on in public or noticing that the passenger near you has been sneezing for the past minute, thus you attive sick on day one. That can be mitigated every year by maintaining a safe distance of six feet between yourself and others, but special attention should be paid to the practice this year, especially if you’re traveling in a high-traffic hub like a train station or airport. Remember, the CDC’s updated guidelines define “close contact” as being within six feet of someone with the virus for a cumulative total of fifteen minutes or more over a period of 24 hours, so be practical, yet mindful!

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Theatre Baton Rouge Starts its 75th Season Opening

Amongst every challenge to live theatre 2020 has brought its way, Theatre Baton Rouge will be celebrating its 75th season by presenting a blend of in-person and online, broadcasted performances in October, November, and December, The Advocate reports.

Since 1946, Theatre Baton Rouge has produced over 400 productions of dramas, comedies, and musicals for the local community, and amid the pandemic, live, engaging theatre is a highly-coveted commodity. Jenny Ballard, the managing artistic director of Theatre Baton Rouge remarked that there is simply “no substitute for live theater. You can have 400 channels on your TV at home. You can have every conceivable iteration of Shakespeare … but there is nothing that compares to being in the room. It is a special intimacy.”

This season, the Theatre Baton Rouge performers will be staging three productions. “Vintage Hitchcock: A Live Radio Play”will be staged October 29-31 over the Zoom Teleconference app. In November, live audiences up to 40 people will be able to see “An Act of God,” and up to 80 audience members can see the troupe’s production of “It’s a Wonderful Life”come December. Also that month, TBR will stream their “The Gift of the Magi” online.

For 75 years now, this theatre has been adapting to the changing environment in order to remain relevant as social and entertainment attitudes, options, and tastes have varied dramatically since 1946.  What would eventually be known among the cultured of Louisiana’s capital as Baton Rouge Theatre began its stored career as the Baton Rouge Civic Theatre with a production of “The Male Animal” at the Woman’s Club on East Boulevard. In fact until the Harding Field theatre became its home in 1948, the theatre staged productions at various venues around the city.

Jerry Leggio, a member of the theatre who began acting in the late 1950 recalled actors exiting stage having to run around the back side of the building in order to return to stage on the opposite side, as the venue at the Harding Field theatre had no backstage. The theatre was built in order to entertain servicemen stationed at the airfield with live performances and films, but weather proved to be quite challenging as rainfall would regularly cancel performances or interrupt them, as it did during the theatre’s run of “A Streetcar Named Desire” in 1959.

Though, just as the theatre proves to be versatile in adapting to the challenges of COVID and 2020, the actors improvised. Leggio recalled in his interview with The Advocate, ““One night, I went out and came back so wet I had to inject a line: ‘Stella, don’t you know it’s raining outside? Of course, everybody knew what I was doing.”

Theatre Baton Rouge changed its name in 1951 to the Baton Rouge Little Theatre, and Theatre House Magazine rated it as the third-best community theatre in the country due to its quality and community support. In fact, while operating as a membership-based theatre, prospective members had to wait for existing members to leave in order to be granted entry.

With time and community support, the Theatre Baton Rouge’s operations and legacy grew exponentially, starting with its first artistic director, Lee Edwards, who committedly held the role until his death in 1978. Edwards was followed by Frank Pope, Henry Avery, Roy Hamlin, Keith Dixon, and J
Enny Ballard, all of whom have succeeded in carrying on the legacy of this staple of Baton Rouge.

Ballard remarked, ““We have a lot of great things happening, but as soon as COVID lets up, we plan to be able to shoot back into action, but in the meantime, we’re doing what we’re doing, and we’re doing it really well.” So, as the expression goes, despite it all, the show truly must go on.

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DOE Introduces Teacher Recruitment & Retention Fellowship

Earlier this month, the Louisiana Department of Education selected school system leaders from across the state to assist in an effort to create a program foe teacher recruitment and retention for the educators in Louisiana’s most vital certification areas, as reported by an LABelieves’ press release.

The State’s Department of Education selected “human capital leaders” from sixteen Louisiana school systems to participate in the fellowship, which will be operating through the national organization, Urban Schools Human Capital Academy. This organization is a non-profit aimed at supporting and bringing together leaders in schools and districts to drive a measurable improvement in teacher and principal quality. The USHCA operates in sixteen states, and has experience in providing new and existing school and district leaders to grow their management skills and become leaders, or human capital leaders.

This particular fellowship will consist of two national workshops and monthly state sessions for this particular Louisiana cohort, which will begin in late October, concluding in Spring 2021. The Louisiana Department of Educationhopes that this effort will bring highly-effective educators and leaders from across the state in order to ensure that every student learns from a high-quality teacher without interruption in personnel.

In the release, State Superintendent of Education, Dr. Cade Brumley stated, “An effective teacher has the power to transform the lives of countless children, which is why we must do everything we can to attract and keep the very best in Louisiana. This fellowship will expose system leadership to what’s working for districts around the nation, while also sparking collaboration that will lead to innovations in our state.”

The sixteen Louisiana school Systems participating in the fellowship program are:

Avoyelles Parish

Caddo Parish

Catahoula Parish

City of Baker School System

Grant Parish

Iberville Parish

Livingston Parish

Morehouse Parish

Ouachita Parish

Pointe Coupee Parish

Rapides Parish

St. Charles Parish

St. Landry Parish

St. Tammany Parish

Tangipahoa Parish

West Baton Rouge Parish

In addition to the monthly Louisiana cohort meetings, the two national workshop portions of the fellowship give state educators the opportunity to collaborate not only with other educators, wherein great strategies, ideas, and materials are shared, but they will also be networking with other human capital professionals from across the U.S, learning the best, tested practices for attracting and keeping effective teachers. While this year the national workshops will be delivered virtually, the national arm of the fellowship plans to focus on how exactly school systems can adjust their recruitment and retention strategic plans during the pandemic.

At their planned monthly meetings, the Louisiana cohort will map out what Louisiana-specific challenges in relation to teacher recruitment and retention are unique to the state, allowing leaders to explore innovative solutions and how best to implement them. Already, the Louisiana human capital leaders have requested the following strategies they would be eager to explore:

  • Building teacher communities across parish lines in order to support educator development and retention.
  • Implementing a structure to share teachers across parish lines, especially in the vital subject areas, such as Advanced Math and Science.
  • Introducing a common interview process for teachers across parish lines.

In Dr. Brumley’s 100 Day Report, the need for an enhanced teacher recruitment and retention program in Louisiana was outlined, and it’s much-needed due to the fact that over have of the Louisiana teachers leaving the profession do so within their first ten years in the classroom. Subjects outlined as having the largest-need areas for teachers are math and science, yet only 8 percent of all program completers earned their teaching certification in math and only 7 percent earned it in science. Needless to say, this fellowship is a refreshing take on a vital challenge facing Louisiana school systems.

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Salted Glazed Pumpkin Bread Perfect for Fall

With fall comes the crunching of the leaves, the zipping of outerwear, and the inevitable preheating of a convection oven for the timeless autumnal treat: the baking of pumpkin-based dishes, and nothing is more celebrated by the whole family than this recipe for a loaf of pumpkin bread with a glaze of salted brown butter, as provided by the talents at Serious Eats.

Ingredients

For the Pumpkin Bread:

  • 8 ounces (1 ⅔ cups, 225g) of all-purpose flour
  • a half ounce (2 tablespoons, 15g) of malted milk powder
  • 1 teaspoon baking powder
  • 1 teaspoon (4g) kosher salt
  • 1 teaspoon baking soda
  • ½ teaspoon ground allspice
  • ½ teaspoon ground nutmeg
  • ¼ teaspoon ground cloves
  • ¼ teaspoon ground ginger
  • 2 large eggs
  • 8 ounces (1 cup, 225g) pumpkin or butternut squash purée
  • 5 ounces (⅔ cup) neutral oil
  • 4 ounces (½ cup; 115g) granulated sugar
  • 4 ounces (½ cup; 115g) light brown sugar
  • 2 ounces (¼ cup; 55g) milk, any fat percentage
  • 1 teaspoon vanilla extract

Recipe:

For the Pumpkin Bread Glaze:

  • 2 ounces (½ cup, 60g) powdered sugar, sifted
  • ¼ teaspoon kosher salt
  • ⅛ teaspoon ground cinnamon
  • 1 ounce (2 tablespoons, 30g) unsalted butter
  • ½ ounce (1 tablespoon, 15g) milk, any fat percentage
    ¼ teaspoon vanilla extract

This pumpkin bread recipe uses:

Note:  If using table salt in lieu of kosher salt, simply use half as much by volume as the above indicates.

  1. Begin prepping for the pumpkin bread by greasing an 8 ½ by 4 ½- inch loaf pan and line it with a 7- by 13-inch sheet of parchment paper so that it hangs over the sides of the pan, forming a sling. Adjust your oven rack to a lower-middle position and preheat it to 350°F.
  2. In a medium bowl, whisk the following together: all-purpose flour, malted milk powder, baking powder, salt, cinnamon, baking soda, allspice, nutmeg, cloves, and ginger until it’s well-combined, typically after 1 minute.
  3. In a large bowl, whisk together your eggs, pumpkin/squash purée, oil, granulated sugar, brown sugar, milk, and vanilla until thoroughly combined and all sugars are dissolved.
  4. Combine your flour and egg mixtures, and whisk just until it’s incorporated and no dry flour remains.
  5. Use a flexible spatula, and scrape your batter into the loaf pan. Then, bake until the loaf is domed and golden brown, and a cake tester inserted into the center comes out with few moist crumbs attached (or an internal temperature of around 200°F), about 1 hour.
  6. Transfer pan to a wire rack that’s set in a baking sheet, letting it cool for 30 minutes. Run a butter knife along the edges to loosen it from the pan, then lift the loaf using overhanging parchment (remember?), and return it to the wire rack after removing the parchment paper.
  7. Begin your glaze by combining your set aside sugar, salt and cinnamon in a small heatproof bowl.
  8. Melt the butter in a 1-quart stainless steel saucier over medium-low heat, increasing to medium and simmering. Stir with a heat-resistant spatula while the butter hisses and pops. Continue cooking this until framing subsides and you’re scraping up brown bits from the bottom. When the butter is golden yellow and the milk solids are chestnut brown (about 5 minutes), remove from the heat.
  9. Add milk, vanilla, and butter, along with your scraped brown bits to the powdered sugar mixture, and whisk until it’s smooth. You should then have 3 ounces of glaze that you will slowly drizzle evenly over your bread.
  10.  Allow the glaze for the pumpkin bread to set for 10 minutes, slice with a serrated knife, and serve.

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Program Brings Louisiana Farming to Classrooms

The Louisiana Farm to School program is a highly beneficial initiative that brings fresh, locally grown produce and vegetables to a variety of the state’s schools and preschools by way of cafeterias and classrooms, as detailed in an LSU Agricultural Center profile piece.

The Farm to School program is designed to increase students’ access to fresh, local foods while strengthening local communities and their economies. Schools can best utilize the program by having students participate in school-community gardens and by incorporating class-ready lessons into their curriculum so that students are able to learn about locally produced produce and vegetables in their community.

Funding for the program comes from the United States Department of Agriculture as well as an interagency agreement with the Louisiana State University Agricultural Center and the Louisiana Department of Education Division of Nutrition services.

What began as the “Harvest of the Month” pilot program in 2015, as it was introduced to only three Louisiana schools, has since grown into the full Louisiana Farm to School program, due to its overwhelming success in teaching students about local favorites in produce and vegetation through lessons, posters, and other resources.

A 4-H sponsor and teacher at St. Mary’s Assumption School in Avoyelles Parish, Betty Jeansonne, who signed up when the program expanded state-wide in 2018 stated, “Because we live in a farming community, I want our students to understand how farming helps to drive the economy in Avoyelles Parish. Teaming up teachers, students and farmers has given us the opportunity to connect with the youth and bring agriculture to them and their families.”

The program provides Jeansonne with resources and lessons that she utilizes often in her classes. These materials encourage healthy living in her students’ lives by advocating for them to include more fruits and vegetables in their diet, embrace new options in the cafeteria, and participate in the school garden. This hands-on learning approach not only is enjoyable in the students’ eyes, but it pushes students to make positive, healthy choices. During the 2018-2019 school year, this approach has reached 55,000 Louisiana students and is set to expand year-after-year.

This latest version of the program is a much more concentrated, comprehensive effort to increase both farm to school activities and local procurement, or the careful selection of future harvesters and farmers. Each year, a Louisiana Farm to School Conference is held to provide producers and school nutrition staff opportunities to network in order to increase the use of local food in school meals.

A major highlight of the conference which is also celebrated state-wide is an event known as the “Great Louisiana Satsuma Peel,” which has attendees peel and share in the enjoyment of a Louisiana-grown satsuma. The event takes place annually on October 24th with any PreK-12 school, early care setting, hospital, colleges, universities, businesses, state agencies, and other Louisiana organizations taking part in enjoying regionally-grown satsumas and other citrus fruits.

School activities such as Farm to School help to strengthen the National School Lunch Program by increasing populations in the school lunch line as well as increasing the consumption of fruit and vegetable consumption in Louisiana schools.

For example, schools in Lafayette and Vermilion parish hold cooking competitions using seasonal produce grown in school gardens with students teaming up with local chefs to prepare competitive recipes. Each year, Lafayette Parish features the top meal on their child nutrition menu district-wide, thus making the impact outrightly noticeable by all of the program’s participants and onlookers.

For more Louisiana related articles, click here.

Top Travel Destinations for Foodies

Traveling offers many opportunities to sleep somewhere new, see unforgettable spectacles, but to be honest, many travelers’ highlight vacation after vacation is trying their destination’s famous cuisine. Therefore, it’s not insane for foodies to plan a trip based on which cities in the United States are best known for their distinct cultural offerings and hometown delicacies, and U.S. News makes it easy with this ranked list of the “Best Foodie Cities.”

Savannah, Georgia

This Georgian coastal city brings together a blend of southern cooking and freshly-caught seafood, if travelled in the right month. While at a riverside restaurant, you can enjoy fresh crab, bouillabaisse, oysters and grouper when selecting a maritime cuisine. Though, if you want the best of Georgia’s southern specialities, you can’t go wrong with a spicy, locally-made sandwich or one of the many variations of southern grits.

Sonoma, California

Though not large or as notable as Napa when it comes to fine dining, Sanoma holds an array of delectable eateries for foodies with a rustic ambiance that holds a spacial place in the locals’ harts. The region is rightfully known for its wines, especially if it’s a zinfandel, but travelers should specifically check out Picazo Café & Deli  for their hamburgers and Angelo’s Wine Country Deli for sandwiches. When looking for atmospheric and tasty cuisine, you can’t go wrong with Bodega Bay’s Terrapin Creek and Petaluma’s Cucina Paradiso.

Austin, Texas

Like the rest of the city, the cuisine in Austin is similarly characterized as weird, but being a culinary hub of barbecue and Tex-Mex cuisine, the weirdness of Austin might be just your style. When in this southern hub of charm and culture, definitely make it a point to grab a bowl of chili or a fried steak, and don’t only rely on fine dining or “sit-down” restaurants, as many of the best finds for foodies in the city are from the army of food trucks roaming around.

Nashville, Tennessee

Though it’s often known for its place in music history or overlooked by neighboring states’ cuisine, this vibrant city is the perfect location for those wanting a fabulous fine-dining experience that incorporates international flavors or a traditional mom-and-pop setting with its offerings of southern-fried, culinary riches. For instance, of course you’re set to try nashville hot, fried chicken in one of the city’s oft-praised diners, but also make it a point to eat a tapas-focused meal at the  Black Rabbit.

Portland, Oregon

In the Pacific Northwest, the reusable, organic, and sustainable are heralded, so it’s little surprise that Oregon’s experimental city has industry experts praising the city’s chefs who are pushing the boundaries of what ingredients pair together well. Portland has over 600 food trucks throughout the streets with many concentrated in a food-court-like “pod” in the downtown area, so you’re never excessively far away from a good meal. Though, you should also make it a dedicated point to try an upscale option such as the top-rated, French-inspired  Le Pigeon or Ataula, a Spanish gastropub.

Chicago, Illinois

The Windy City’s food scene is expansive, so plan accordingly as you might find that your eyes are more adventurous than how far your feet are able to walk or your stomach is able to hold. With notable staples like the deep-dish pizza, fully-loaded hot dogs, Garrett popcorn, and italian beef, there’s no wonder why this city is oft-referred to as the culinary capital of the Midwest.

 San Francisco, California

Topping U.S. News’ for foodies is this innovative, extensive city known for its Michelin-starred restaurants, bounty of farmer’s markets, and “secret” hole-in-the-wall eateries. You’re never without an option or dinner, no matter the mood you and your fellow travelers find yourselves in, so take a stroll along the Marina and start writing your own San Franciscan food chronicle.

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