Author: Emily Gautreaux

Roasted Turkey with Herb Stuffing is Perfect for Any Holiday Meal

Thanksgiving isn’t the only time a perfectly roasted turkey can be the star of the show, it’s perfect for any holiday gathering.  It’s time to start thinking about how you want to prepare your next holiday meal. Luckily, Epicurious has tons of tried-and-true recipes that everyone will enjoy, such as this recipe for Classic Roast Turkey With Herbed Stuffing and Old-fashioned Gravy. The herbed stuffing used in this recipe is the perfect complement to a roast turkey. It’s savory and flavorful, with a hint of rosemary and thyme. The stuffing can be made ahead of time and refrigerated until you’re ready to stuff the turkey.

Ingredients for roasted turkey:

Equipment:

Directions for roasted turkey:

  1. You’ll want to begin this recipe by placing your oven rack in the lowest position and preheating your oven to 325°F. Then, butter an 8-inch square baking dish or a 2-quart casserole dish and lightly brush your roasting rack with vegetable oil, and place your roasting pan into it.
  2. The next step is to prepare your turkey for stuffing. First, you’ll want to remove the plastic or paper packet of giblets from your 12-pound turkey; these are usually located within a small cavity. Remove the giblets from the packaging and rinse them with water. Reserve the gizzard and heart and discard the floppy, dark purple liver.Remove the neck from the turkey’s large cavity. Remove the packaging from the neck, rinse them with water, and reserve. Then, using tweezers or needle nose pliers, remove any remaining excess such as feathers and quills still attached to the skin, though this is usually only required of kosher turkeys. Pull off and reserve any visible pale yellow knobs of fat from either side of the tail.
  3. Rinse the turkey inside and out with cold water and pat it dry. Loosely fill the small neck cavity with your warmed farmhouse herbed stuffing. Fold the neck skin under the body and fasten it with a metal skewer. Then, loosely fill the large body cavity with more warmed farmhouse herbed stuffing, and then transfer your remaining stuffing to your buttered dish from earlier and drizzle with ¼ cup of homemade turkey stock. Cover your turkey with aluminum foil, and refrigerate it until it’s ready to bake.
  4. Transfer your turkey with the breast side facing up to the rack in your roasting pan. Tuck wing tips underneath the breast and tie drumsticks loosely together with kitchen twine. Rub turkey all over with softened butter and sprinkle with 1 teaspoon salt and ½ teaspoon pepper. Then, tightly cover the breast area with foil, leaving wings, thighs, and drumsticks exposed. Transfer gizzard, heart, neck, and reserved turkey fat to a roasting pan around the rack, pour 2 cups of turkey stock into the pan, and roast the turkey for 45 minutes.
  5. Throughout the roasting, baste with pan juices every 45 minutes, 1½ hours more (2¼ hours total). Baste again and, if pan juices have evaporated into a glaze, you’ll want to add 1 cup stock to the pan. Roast for another 45 minutes (3 hours total). Remove foil from breast area, baste, and add stock if necessary, until your instant-read thermometer inserted into the fleshy part of thigh (close to but not touching bone) registers 180°F, about 1 hour more (4 hours total).
  6. Insert an instant-read thermometer into the center of the stuffing in the body cavity, ensuring that it reads a minimum of 165°F. Cover the turkey and keep it warm. When you’re ready to serve, use turkey holders to transfer turkey to a large serving platter. Let the stand for 30 minutes before carving.

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Six Excellent Mountain Resorts for your Next Vacation

Whether you’re an experienced hiker or this is your first time in ski lodge country, there’s no denying the utter beauty of mountain resorts. In the United States alone, there are plenty of fantastic options to choose from. Thanks to this excellent travel blog post from Travel + Leisure, you can survey and explore six of the best mountain ranges in the United States. This list covers all sorts of different terrain so that you can find the perfect fit for your next hike, weekend trip, or wintertime vacation.

Under Canvas Moab, Moab, Utah

Under Canvas Moab is nestled in the heart of Moab, Utah nearby Arches and Canyonlands National Parks. This beautiful resort and town is surrounded by red rock cliffs and towering mountains, making it the perfect spot for Under Canvas Moab to offer luxury camping experiences with all the amenities of home. Each spacious canvas tent includes a king-sized bed, private bathrooms, and a deck with stunning views. Guests can enjoy on-site activities such as hiking, biking, and canoeing– as well as on-site programming that includes guided tours, yoga, and s’mores by the campfire.

The Ahwahnee, Yosemite Valley, California

Designed by architect Gilbert Stanley Underwood in 1927, The Ahwahnee is a historic luxury hotel located in Yosemite Valley, California. The Ahwahnee is known for its grandiose architecture and spectacular setting, and has been featured in many films and television shows over the years for its decadence. If you’re looking to relax in style while also being in close proximity to Half Dome and El Capitan trailheads, you’re in the right place.

Jenny Lake Lodge and Jackson Lake Lodge, Wyoming

Both Jenny Lake Lodge and Jackson Lake Lodge are operated by the Grand Teton Lodge Company, and they’re two of the best mountain lodges in all of Wyoming, which is saying a lot. They offer stunning views of the Teton Range, as well as a variety of activities for guests to enjoy. Jenny Lake Lodge is located in Grand Teton National Park, and it offers a variety of accommodations, including suites, cabins, and cottages. The lodge also has a restaurant, bar, and gift shop. Guests can enjoy hiking, horseback riding, fishing, and kayaking. Jackson Lake Lodge is also located in Grand Teton National Park, near Moran, and it’s seen as a complement to Jenny Lake Lodge, as both have similar amenities and rave reviews.

Topnotch Resort, Stowe, Vermont

Looking to hit the slopes this winter? Then you’ll want to check out Topnotch Resort in Stowe, Vermont. Ranked as one of the best mountain resorts in the country, Topnotch offers superb skiing and snowboarding conditions on its world-class trails. But it’s not just the slopes that make Topnotch a top pick for winter vacationers. The resort also boasts luxurious accommodations, outstanding dining, and a wide range of family-friendly activities. So whether you’re looking to hit the powder or simply relax and enjoy the winter scenery, Topnotch Resort is sure to please.

Viceroy Snowmass, Snowmass Village, Colorado

Viceroy Snowmass is a AAA Four-Diamond resort in Snowmass Village, Colorado that features ski-in/ski-out access to Snowmass Mountain, as well as a number of luxury amenities and services. Guests can enjoy on-site dining at one of the resort’s three restaurants, relax in the spa, or take advantage of the 24-hour fitness center. Viceroy Snowmass also offers a variety of event and meeting spaces, making it the perfect place for weddings, conferences, and other special occasions.

The Broadmoor, Colorado Springs, Colorado

The Broadmoor in Colorado Springs, Colorado is one of the best mountain resorts in the United States. The resort overlooks the city of Colorado Springs and is situated at the base of Cheyenne Mountain. The Broadmoor offers a variety of accommodations, including suites, townhomes, and villas. The resort also features an award-winning spa,championship golf courses, tennis courts, and several restaurants.

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Louisiana Author, Ernest J Gaines to appear on U.S. Stamp

Louisiana author, Ernest J Gaines, who is widely known for examining race, class, and poverty in his works, will be featured on a postage stamp to be issued January 2023, according to this article from The Advocate and announced by the University of Louisiana at Lafayette.

The internationally acclaimed author, who passed away at age 86 in November 2019, was a writer-in-residence emeritus at the University of Louisiana at Lafayette, where he also taught creative writing from 1983 until he retired in 2010. This past week, the United States Postal Service announced that the 46th stamp in their Black Heritage series will feature an oil painting based on a photograph of a stoically poised Ernest Gaines wearing his trademark beret.

President of the University of Louisiana at Lafayette, Dr. Joseph Savoie, commented on the postage stamp honoring Ernest Gaines by saying, “Dr. Gaines’ stamp offers an impressive representation of the man I knew and admired, and it reminds me of the immeasurable grace, strength, and character he displayed throughout his life and through his words. More importantly, it acknowledges and affirms his belief in the inherent commonality of people and his unflinching courage in reminding us of the need to continually address some of the darkest chapters in our collective past.”

Something the nation lost when Gaines passed was the chance to hear his literary voice. His understated yet striking prose had a way of highlighting the struggles of marginalized groups and shaking up our consciences. Ernest Gaines began his publishing career with the 1964 publication of Catherine Carmier. He soon received acclaim and published 7 more novels, two collections of short stories, and many other volumes throughout his prolific career. In 2013, Gaines was awarded a National Medal of Arts, which is the highest award given by the U.S. government to artists, by President Barack Obama for his contributions to the arts and his dynamic lifetime of achievement in literature.

In their published obituary, The New York Times noted that in his writing, Ernest J Gaines told “of the inner struggle for dignity among southern black people before the civil rights era” and “captured the lives and strivings of those he had grown up within a time of limited opportunities and oppressive racism.”

Born in 1933, Gaines grew up on the River Lake Plantation in Pointe Coupee Parish, Louisiana with his parents, who worked as sharecroppers. With every hardship they faced, from economic desperation to racial segregation and its aftermath, the family’s eloquence in their losses constructed Gaines’ personal narrative and literary ethos. As a teenager, he moved to California and studied at Stanford University. Soon after, he taught at Stanford before returning to Louisiana to continue writing his fiction, which was resiliently rooted in his ancestors and the people and places of his childhood.

Gaines’ novel that first received widespread attention was The Autobiography of Jane Pittman. The novel is a true account of the fictional life of a 110-year-old woman born into slavery. Published in 1971, Gaines’ inspiration for the work came from his Aunt Augusteen Jefferson, who raised him after his parents were killed when he was four years old.

His other massively notable work, A Lesson Before Dying, revolves around the story of an illiterate man wrongfully condemned to death. This novel earned a National Book Critics Circle Award, won a Pulitzer Prize nomination, and was selected for Oprah Winfrey’s book club.

Gaines’ novels have been published in at least 17 languages, and their writing is often compared to both Charles Dickens and William Faulkner. His wide-reaching appeal is linked to his skills of “prompt[ing] conversation about humanity,” as explained by UL Lafayette’s Cheylon Woods, who is an assistant professor and director of the Ernest J Gaines Center.

UL Lafayette’s Ernest J Gaines Center, which  Gaines worked to establish after he retired, is an international center for scholarship on the author and his fiction that is housed in the Edith Garland Dupré Library.

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Convenient, Savory, and Loaded Breakfast Sandwich Recipe

What’s better than breakfast? A big, delicious breakfast sandwich, that’s what! This deliciously inventive loaded breakfast sandwich recipe from ClosetCooking is made up of an excellent fried egg, avocado, chipotle mayo, and crispy bacon. Enjoy the ultimate breakfast sandwich today, because as we all know breakfast is the most important meal of the day and not many people take it seriously. Not only are you satisfying your cravings, but you’re also filling up with nutritious ingredients that will ward off those mid-morning hunger pangs. Since breakfast is such a big meal, this loaded sandwich recipe is perfect for those mornings when you don’t have time to make a full breakfast!

Ingredients:

Directions:

  1. You’ll want to start this delicious recipe by placing your avocado into a medium-sized bowl and mashing it with a blunt cooking instrument. Pour in your lemon juice and salt, and mix it all together. In another smaller bowl, you’ll mix your mayonnaise with your chopped chipotle chili pepper.
  2. Split your preferred sandwich base such as English muffins, biscuits, or croissants. Then, in a large skillet on the stovetop, you’ll lightly toast both sides of the sandwich base. Spread both sides of the croissant or a similar base with the avocado mixture and set this aside.
  3. Next, you’ll cook your bacon strips in a large skillet for 7-9 minutes. After the bacon is done cooking, break each slice in half and dap the excess oil with some folded paper towels. Repeat these steps for your breakfast sausage patties by placing them in the bacon oil for no more than 4 minutes. Remove and cover when finished.
  4. Using one tablespoon of bacon fat from the skillet, add the eggs and cover, and cook for one minute. Then top each egg with bacon and cheese. Let the egg sit until the cheese is melted and the egg whites are cooked through.
  5. Once you’re ready to eat, you’ll want to place one bacon and cheese-topped egg on each of the English muffinswith smashed avocado. Place a cooked breakfast sausage patty in between the muffins, assemble, and enjoy.

Notes:

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Ground Broken for New Pump Station in Donaldsonville

It was recently announced that officials in Louisiana have broken ground for a $96 million pump station in Donaldsonville that will help to revive the local barrier islands and marshes that protect a large region of south Louisiana from Hurricanes and sea level rise. According to this article from The Advocate, the construction of the long-delayed pumping station, which is considered to be the key to many Bayou Lafourche and coastal restoration projects, had officially broken ground in Donaldsonville on Friday, October 21st.

The project actually caps a larger $220 million effort to reconnect the Mississippi River to the 106-mile-long Bayou Lafourche, which flows from Donaldsonville and empties into the Gulf of Mexico at Port Fourchon.

Louisiana Governor John Bel Edwards, members of the congress, and other elected officials were in attendance at the groundbreaking ceremony. All parties came together in order to honor the start of construction of the $96 million pump station, which will protect the drinking water supply for four parishes (Ascension, Assumption, Lafourche, and Terrebonne) and combat saltwater intrusion in Lafourche and Terrebonne estuaries. These estuaries experience some of the highest land loss rates in the world.

Gov. John Bel Edwards spoke about the long-delayed pump station by saying, “this is tremendous for the entire state. The lack of freshwater flowing into the bayou has endangered wetlands and drinking water supplies for 300,000 people. And it robbed this region of one of its most scenic waterways for too long.”

For more than a century, Bayou Lafourche had been sealed off from the Mississippi River, its main source of freshwater, and this action has led to a series of environmental problems, such as the loss of wetlands south of Houma and New Orleans.

Officials in south Louisiana have announced that the new station will be constructed atop the river levee in downtown Donaldsonville, alongside a nearly-70-year-old pump. The station is set to provide the area with increased water capacity. The pump will triple the flow of the river into Bayou Lafourche and revive marshes and barrier islands that help protect South Louisiana from hurricanes, while also ensuring that a region of South Louisiana has a safe drinking water supply.

Edwards highlighted the necessity of this project by saying, “the importance of this project to the Bayou Region and to our state can’t be overstated. The pump station will protect nearly 10 percent of Louisiana’s drinking water supplywhile nourishing over 85,000 acres of marsh in some of the country’s most land-starved areas. We’re investing more than ever before into protection and restoration projects across our coast, and it’s clear these efforts will continue to benefit Louisiana for decades to come.”

Since Hurricane Gustav in 2008 churned up a massive amount of muck and debris that blocked and contaminated the mouth of the bayou, state officials have been hard at work to restore Bayou Lafourche and build up the pump station. When Hurricane Gustav hit, there were weeks-long boil-water advisories in effect for approximately 300,000 residents. U.S. Rep. Garret Graves, R-Baton Rouge spoke at the ceremony about the conditions following the 2008 hurricane saying, “after Gustav, that water was stagnant and disgusting. You could smell the bayou for miles.”

According to The Advocate, the Bayou Lafourche Fresh Water District has spent the past 11 years preparing the bayou for the pump station’s increased flows by widening and deepening several miles of it, raising a railroad crossing in Donaldsonville, installing water control gates, and removing a small dam in Thibodaux, Louisiana.

The bayou projects have already attracted more residents to the neighborhood. Recently, there have been a number of recreational projects in the area that include public docks, boat launches, and bayou-side trails. The new pump station is projected to start operating in 2025, and it should be up and running by the end of 2025.

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Tulane University Highlights International Education with a Week of Celebration

This year’s International Education Week is set to highlight and celebrate the educational impact of Tulane University’s students, faculty, and outreach, according to this press release from the school.

Outside of being a prestigious Louisiana institution, Tulane University is a global university. With students representing over 80 countries and scholars and international students numbering over 1,500, Tulane University has grown increasingly globalized. The school also boasts 140 study abroad programs in 40 countries, approximately 10,000 international alumni, and research taking place across 70 nations all around the world, from Central America to Asia.

This year, Tulane’s Office of Academic Affairs and Provost as well as the Office of International Affairs, which is also known as Tulane Global, will join forces to host this year’s TU International Education Week.

This annual week that celebrates and advocates for Internationally-focused educational opportunities is made possible thanks to Tulane Global’s key partners: the Office of International Students and Scholars, the NTC Center for Global Education, and over 15 schools and units across Tulane’s campus.

Tulane University’s International Education Week is set to take place from November 14 through the 17th, with a variety of programming at both the uptown and downtown campuses. There are internationally-acclaimed keynote speakers, a welcome reception with musical performances, and satellite events on campus. International culinary offerings will be available at The Commons as well.

The theme for this year’s International Education Week is set to be “(Re) Imagining Borderlands & Shared Cultures in Between.” Throughout the week, Tulane aims to celebrate the University’s global community and to spotlight their international research, collaborations, and variety of learning that Tulane faculty, students, and staff are consistently engaged in around the world.

Laila Hlass, associate provost for international affairs and clinical professor of law at Tulane Law School, commented on this year’s event by saying, “International Education Week is an opportunity to celebrate Tulane’s international community and reflect upon our global footprint. This year’s theme is meant to spark deeper thinking about global inequity and racism while we cultivate spaces for global awareness across borders fostering an inclusive international community and encouraging impactful and responsive global learning and research.”

One of the highlights of the week will be an inaugural lecture by the noted Peruvian-American journalist and author Daniel Alarcón. Then, a closing keynote lecture by Pulitzer Prize-winning Mojave American poet Natalie Diaz.

Juan Carlos Alarcón is a Columbian professor of journalism and a 2021 MacArthur Fellow. His work explores the connections between people throughout Latin America through their social, cultural, and linguistic ties.  Alarcón is the author of Lost City Radio, At Night We Walk in Circles, and The King is Always Above The People. He is a contributing writer for “The New Yorker” and a co-founder of the “Radio Ambulante” and “El Hilo” podcasts.  He will speak at 5:30 p.m., on November 14th, in Freeman Auditorium at Woldenberg Art Center.

Alarcón’s multimedia lecture is sponsored by the Center for Inter-American Policy & Research, the Freeman School of Business, the Fulbright Association, the School of Liberal Arts, the Stone Center for Latin American Studies, the Office of Academic Affairs and Provost, and Tulane Global.

Natalie Diaz, who is also a 2018 MacArthur Fellow, is a professor in the English Department at Arizona State University and a co-founder of the Center for the Imagination of the Borderlands. Born and raised in the  Fort Mojave Indian Village on the banks of the Colorado River. Diaz is an enrolled member of the Gila River Indian Tribe. Diaz won the Pulitzer Prize in Poetry in 2021 for her poetry collection “Postcolonial Love Poem.” Diaz’s keynote lecture will take place on Wednesday, Nov. 16 at 5:30 p.m. at Freeman Auditorium. 

The following sponsors sponsored Diaz’s talk: Altman Program for International Studies and Business, Middle American Research Institute, Newcomb Institute, Office of Academic Affairs and Provost, Office of Equity Diversity and Inclusion, and Tulane Global.

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