Du Jour with Heirloom Cuisine

She’s front of the house, he’s back of the house, but the two of them find a way to churn out well-timed fine foods for big events without major dust-ups. “At first, we’d micromanage each other, but now we have a lot of fun,” says Heirloom Cuisine co-owner Caryn Roland, 40. Throughout the 1990s, she and then-boyfriend Chef Jason Roland, 38, worked independently in different aspects of the food business. It was management for her and the kitchen for him. Then, in 2003, the same year they married, the couple opened Heirloom Cuisine in St. Francisville. This month, the company adds a new dimension to its services — in house catering for Rosemound Gardens, a recently renovated B&B a few miles south of the Mississippi state line and owned by Jason Roland’s family.

Roland, a 1992 graduate of the Culinary Institute of America, earned his chops under respected New Orleans chef and restaurateur René Bajeux at the Windsor Court Hotel between 1994-2001. After stints in restaurants in Aspen, Colorado(where Jason followed Caryn), the couple worked at hotels and resorts in Newport, Rhode Island and Naples, Florida. Today, Jason’s style leans Southern and Creole – that’s what most clients hereabouts want, says Caryn. Among his signature dishes are a couchon de lait cobbler, a layered dish of slow-roasted smoked pork, braised mustard greens, mashed sweet potatoes and a topping of cornbread crumbles; and fried oysters – prepared last-minute on site – with homemade tartar sauce. The signature sweet in Roland’s repertoire is a cranberry and walnut bread pudding bite, but Caryn says her husband is incredibly masterful with the pig. One iteration features roast pork with a glaze of figs, Steen’s Cane Syrup and dried cherries. “I have no idea hat he does to it – it’s like he makes love to it,” she says, “but it’s incredible.”

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