Spotlight on Pig and Plough Suppers

Baton Rouge chefs will team up with Lafayette’s Jeremy Conner for the first Capital City Pig and Plough Suppers event in June. Conner is the chef for Village Café and co-founder of the slow food dinner series that has already partnered with Bread & Circus Provisions, Café Vermilionville and others to raise awareness about local foods and chefs.

The Baton Rouge event, dubbed “A Trade Winds Dinner,” kicks off June 2 at Beausoleil, and Conner will team up with Beausoleil’s Chef Nathan Gresham as well as Jay Ducote of Bite and Booze. Drinks and passed hors d’ourves start at 6 p.m. Dinner is served at 7 p.m. Tickets are $85. Proceeds benefit Cooking Matters for Families, which teaches parents and families how to cook and make nutritional meals.

The theme of the dinner is showing off foods and flavors from West Africa, the Caribbean and south Louisiana. The six-course meal will pair Louisiana craft beers with local foods using the help of Indie Plate, an online grocery store that connects Baton Rouge residents with produce from local farmers.

Pig and Plough co-founder Tyler Thigpen says the event will bring together chefs and local resources from Lafayette and Baton Rouge in a way that hasn’t been done before.

“Our work in Lafayette has created this family of chefs and made the patrons and consumers aware of what can be done with local foods as well as what foods are accessible in the area,” Thigpen says. “Now, we want to bring chefs together who haven’t worked together in the past and get the collaborations rolling here.”

Pig and Plough’s last event raised around $1,500 and benefited EarthShare Gardens, a non-profit that establishes community gardens in Lafayette. The money was used to buy seedlings and seeds.

“The money goes to a great place,” Thigpen says. “It’s fulfilling to see our work come to fruition.”