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Rouses Means Local growth

Red Beans & Rice Makes 12 servings WHAT YOU WILL NEED: 1½ pounds dried red kidney beans (soaked overnight) ½ pound andouille or smoked sausage, sliced ½ inch thick ¼ cup extra virgin olive oil 1 16-ounce container Guidry’s Fresh Cuts 1 bay leaf 1 tablespoon sweet paprika 1 tablespoon hot sauce, plus more for serving 1 large smoked ham hock (about 12½ ounces) HOW TO PREP: In a large bowl, cover beans with water by at least an inch, and soak for at least 4 hours or overnight. In a large, heavy-bottomed pot over medium heat, brown sausage in 1 tablespoon of oil until fat drippings are rendered and sausage is slightly crisp, 3 to 5 minutes. Add remaining oil and Guidry’s, and cook, stirring often, until onion is translucent and limp, 3 to 5 minutes. Add bay leaf, paprika and hot sauce. Drain, rinse and sort soaked red beans; add beans and ham hock to pot. Pour in chicken stock to cover. Increase heat to high, and bring mixture to a boil, skimming off and discarding foam that forms on the surface. Reduce heat to low; cover and simmer until beans are tender, 3 to 4 hours. Remove ham hock in the last hour of cooking, and cut meat from bone. Chop ham meat and return to pot, stirring to further break beans up. Remove and discard bay leaf. Stir in salt and sugar. Serve beans over white, brown or jasmine rice (recipe below). 2 quarts chicken stock 3 teaspoons kosher salt 2 tablespoons granulated sugar

“Our with the Rouse family and their company has always been that ‘a gentleman’s word means everything,’” says Vince. “If there was ever an issue, somebody with the last name of Rouse would talk to somebody with the last name of Hayward, and we’d get it worked out, get it handled, and take care of business. There was a time in which business was very much a personal relationship, one on one. And that’s still the case today for both of our organizations. Rouses is still about those ideals. Donny Rouse is the face of the company. I’m certain that the consumer feels like they have a very personal relationship with the Rouse family, and our consumers feel like they have a personal relationship with our brand. And those are not the norms across the industry. These are unique and special circumstances in today’s world.” A local product of the best quality, sold for the best price. Even though we’ve been together for 60 years, the Rouses partner- ship with the Camellia brand is only just getting started. The Hayward Standard A stunning 90,000 to 100,000 pounds of Camellia beans, peas and lentils are packed by the company every day. The red beans are, of course, their flagship product, and are — it should come as no surprise — the best-selling red beans in the United States today. This is in large part because of the Hayward family, whose hands remain fixed firmly on the wheel. It takes more than marketing and business acumen to find that kind of success. This is a family business. The secret to Camellia’s success is love. Every bean poured from a pack of Camellia beans was grown on American farms, some of which the family has been working alongside for generations. Unity, again, is part of the red bean story of triumph: relationship

When Camellia succeeds, the local community succeeds right alongside it. The family keeps a close watch on the quality of the beans that bear that distinct, long-leafed red flower on its packaging. So high, in fact, are the standards necessary for the Camellia label that the U.S. Department of Agricul- ture’s method for sorting bean quality proved inadequate to the task. Farmers famously had to create a new, higher level for the company and its most famous product. They call it the Hayward Standard. L.H. Hayward & Co. is today run by Vince, Connelly and Ken Hayward — the fourth generation of Hayward men to sit behind the big desk, to walk the warehouses, to check the plowed rows to keep an eye on quality. “My job is to be a steward who passes on this organization to the next generation in better shape than I received it,” says Vince, “and that’s also their job: to continue the legacy and values that got us here today; to value our consumers, to value our team members and to value our place in the community.” One hundred seventy years ago, when Sawyer Hayward first set foot on the docks of his new home, the immigrant could never have dreamed that his hard work would outlast not only the turn of one century, but of two, and that it would be his direct descen- dants who kept it going forward. “Next to white rice/it looks like coral/ sitting next to snow,” wrote the great Puerto Rico-born poet, Victor Hernández Cruz, in his poem Red Beans . And the dish, prepared with Camellia, shared across generations, and adopted across the South, always looks like New Orleans. And it always tastes like home. Pictured: Connelly, Ken & Vince Hayward, fourth-generation producers of Camellia Beans (images courtesy of Camellia Beans)

Jasmine Rice Makes 4 cups WHAT YOU WILL NEED: ½ cup canola oil 1 large yellow onion, diced ¼ cup unsalted butter, softened 1 bay leaf 2 teaspoons kosher salt 2 cups uncooked jasmine rice 3 cups water

HOW TO PREP: Heat oil in a medium saucepan with a tight-fitting lid over medium-high heat. Add onion, butter, bay leaf and salt, and cook, stirring often, until onions are tender and translucent, about 6 minutes. Add rice and stir well. Stir in water, and bring mixture to a boil. Cover, reduce heat to low and cook 15 minutes. Remove from heat and let stand, covered, for 5 minutes. Fluff rice with a fork and serve.

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