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THE LOUISIANA FOOD & WINE FESTIVAL

“We have a lot of things coming to Downtown Ruston, and that is one of them.” The food park is located in the middle of Downtown Ruston, at the railroad tracks. “You can’t miss it!” he said. Bad Wolf BBQ feeds diners Thursday through Saturday for lunch service, from 11am to 3pm. “Right now, we do a lot of prep in the beginning of the week. And we are going to have a lot more expanded hours and things like that as the food truck park develops and starts holding events at nighttime.” He is proud of what he has built and considers himself lucky. He said that someone interested in taking the same path that he did — following a passion through to a livelihood — can do a few things to set themselves up for success. “The best advice I have is to just take that first step and do it — but try to do it smart. Try to do it strategically. Don’t do it without thinking about it. But so many talented people get hung up with insecurities.” If you truly have a passion for something, that passion is going to outweigh some of the hardships that you’re sure to face, he said. “It’s going to be worth it. Do it for the love of the thing. If your heart’s in the right place, and if you’re doing it for the right reasons, it’s going to go better than your wildest dreams.” ARROW-CIRCLE-RIGHT “I served as an official judge at the inaugural Louisiana Food & Wine Festival in Lake Charles, Louisiana. Our task as judges was to try all of the dishes at the Grand Tasting and score them based on taste, presentation and creativity. I have never eaten so much in one day, not even on Thanksgiving. We awarded Bad Wolf BBQ our Judge’s Choice for “Best Overall” dish. It featured rosemary sweet potatoes, smoked brisket, a signature white sauce, pecans, syrup and fresh rosemary. I’ve been dreaming about that dish ever since. Bad Wolf and Gonzo’s Smokehouse & BBQ (a crowd favorite at Fire on the Lake, a Louisiana Food & Wine Festival barbecue event the night before the Grand Tasting) inspired the concept for this entire magazine. Their food was that good.” – Marcy Nathan, Creative Director, Rouses Markets

Louisiana, which is mostly about seafood. But we are from North Louisiana,” he said. “We came mainly for Fire on the Lake, which was a barbecue and pitmaster event of the festival on the first [Friday] evening.” For that event, Caskey prepared a miniature version of one of Bad Wolf BBQ’s best-loved dishes. “It was a small serving of smoked brisket with something from our region in North Louisiana: sweet potatoes.” The recipe was simple, and relied on technique. With his brisket, he paired three ounces of mashed sweet potatoes, smoothly blended, with fresh rosemary leaves, crushed pecans and cane syrup, topped with his signature Louisiana white sauce. “Something like that just feels to me a lot more modern and elevated than just tradi tional meat-salt-butcher paper,” he said. The next day, the festival’s Grand Tasting was set to be a major culinary event. “We set up and did the whole thing on Friday. And then the next day on the Grand Tasting day, we set up and did it all again.” From what he saw, pretty much everybody there was doing traditional, Louisiana-style dishes: seafood, primarily. He again served the smoked brisket with sweet potato dish. Caskey was pleased to win the People’s Choice award for Best Meat. But to his aston ishment and delight, he also took home the trophy for Judge’s Choice Best Overall Dish for the festival. “I was extremely surprised when that happened,” he said, explaining that barbecue is not typically what people think of as being a Louisiana dish, let alone one of the top dishes in the state. “People from around the world traditionally associate seafood and things like that with Louisiana. For the Judge’s Choice to choose a barbecue dish was a great win — not only for me, but for barbecue overall. It’s still hard for me to believe barbecue would come out as well as it did at an event like this — in Louisiana! Can you believe it?” Rouses Markets will again present the 2024 Louisiana Food & Wine Festival September 19-22 in Lake Charles. WHAT THE RUSTON COMMUNITY IS ALL ABOUT Since then, business has continued to be great, and Caskey expects it to grow even more. Heard Freighthouse Food Park is expanding, and its owners have even built a stage for local performers to entertain diners.

A successful restaurant — whether brick and-mortar, food truck or pop-up — is a testament to the community that produced it, as Bad Wolf BBQ has demonstrated. It speaks to the local economy, local tastes, local produce and local community spirit. That is one reason why Experience Ruston, an organization that promotes tourism in Ruston and Lincoln Parish, asked Caskey in 2023 to participate in the first annual Louisiana Food & Wine Festival, held in Lake Charles. The idea behind the festival, according to Jan Gourley, its founding director, was to bring people to Lake Charles so they could see, in person, what the city has to offer. In doing that, organizers hoped to “showcase all the things we love about Louisiana — the food, the music, the people, the culture,” she said. No one could have prepared them for the response, not only from top chefs and rising stars across Louisiana, but also from across America, Mexico and Canada. “We brought in some celebrity chefs, as well as some great chefs in the state,” she said. “We had a chef from Commander’s Palace in New Orleans, and Dook Chase — Leah Chase’s grandson — with the restaurant Chapter IV. Brennan’s came, and we brought in Chef Tiffany Derry, who is a chef and a judge on the Food Network’s Top Chef . It was just a great mix of local and celebrity talent.” In addition, the festival featured artisans from across the state who create such things as food and beverage-related glassware and cutting boards. Rouses Markets was the official presenting sponsor of the event. Communities from across the state also found local talent to represent them at the festival. “We had A Taste of Louisiana Alley, featuring several destinations from around the state,” said Gourley. “They brought in culinary talent, and sometimes a brewery or a distillery, to showcase their cities. It just activates the destination a bit more than just having something like a brochure — and anyway, at the Louisiana Food & Wine Festival, people want to taste all of those different kinds of cuisines [from] throughout the state, obviously.” Bad Wolf BBQ represented Ruston, though Caskey kept expectations in check about his chances in the festival tasting competitions. “There were so many chefs from all over, and especially some great ones from South

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