What’s Up

Behind the blue bricks of Strands Café on Laurel Street, a one-of-a-kind cinnamon roll keeps people of all ages warm for the winter. Owner Lilita Blanchard crafted the popular pastries from her grandmother’s recipe, and their sharable size and decadence make them ideal for changing seasons.

“During the fall and winter months, of course, because the temperature drops outside, people crave comfort food,” Blanchard says. “And cinnamon rolls are notoriously comfort food.”

The oversized rolls pull apart into thirds for easier sharing and storing for later, which comes in handy for the many kids who request their own. They sell best on Saturday mornings, especially as the holidays approach. But it’s all in a day’s work for Blanchard, who begins preparing the cinnamon rolls from scratch every morning at dawn—and that’s with hours of additional prep work. The same care goes into all the café’s confections, including the seasonal pumpkin cheesecake croissant, a flavor picked through voting among Strands’ customers. The Strands team even creates its own ingredients for coffee drinks instead of using manufactured syrups. While the season still permits, Strands’ pumpkin soufflé latte offers a subtle but spiced pairing for the sugary richness of the cinnamon rolls. 

Personal touches like homemade flavors and complimentary icing cups for that extra bit of dipping have made Strands’ cinnamon rolls a local treasure. ‘Tis the season to indulge. strandscafe.com

All artists want their work to be more visible. Lately, Baton Rougeans have been literally stumbling upon artwork thanks to the Free Art Friday movement.

Baton Rouge-based photographer Kristina Sutton brought the international art project to the local level in late August. Every Friday, a different artist offers up a piece for free, hiding it in a public spot. Sutton helps generate the clues through Facebook and Twitter.

Local artists Alexis Stephenson, Dallas Teague and Corey Nichols offered up their artwork in recent weeks. Baton Rouge Ballet Theatre and Theatre Baton Rouge have gotten in on the project, too, hiding tickets to upcoming shows around the city. And Sutton has plans to expand it into New Orleans soon.

“The whole thing as an artist is that there comes a point in your life where you make the decision that you are not giving away your work for free. But this is a great way to get back to your roots a little bit—You were sharing your art [then] and it was not about making a profit,” Sutton says. facebook.com/FreeArtFridayBatonRouge

Huge, mixed-use developments were part of the dream for downtown Baton Rouge 15 years ago when urban designer Andrés Duany was brought in to help initiate Plan Baton Rouge. Years later, while downtown was launching that transformation, Duany had what’s essentially an urban designer’s spiritual awakening.

Spurred on partly by the complex red tape that stifles small businesses and tends to favor major developments, Duany embraced the idea of lean urbanism.

“The old ways of throwing money at projects like this—that kind of idea is an out-of-date idea,” Duany says.

The solution—low-tech urban design, less grand building types and reducing red tape—will be the subject of his keynote address to the Louisiana Smart Growth Summit this month. His Nov. 18 opening night talk is free to the public and will likely have planners and local leaders rethinking their approach to improving downtown. summit.cpex.org