St. Mary’s cafeteria manager caters to local tastes

So, when Jackson, an usher and lifetime parishioner at St. Raymond-St. Leo Church, assembles the ingredients for her succulent, impeccably seasoned seafood quiche, she makes several at a time.
 

“The secret is to pre-bake your pie shell to a golden brown before you put in your filling – a lot of people put it in an unbaked shell, but that makes it gummy,” said Jackson, sharing her other quiche-related secret: she pre-seasons her shrimp and crawfish before searing them, locking in the flavor.
 

Her savory batter includes just enough crab meat to make a statement, and a topping of freshly shredded Gruyere-cheese.
 

“Once you pre-season the seafood and sear it, you don’t have to add any extra salt,” Jackson said. “Whipping the heavy cream and eggs together makes it light and fluffy.”
 

All hands on deck!
 

Jackson grew up as the youngest of five children in the former St. Raymond Parish, cultivating a love for cooking while watching her parents host after-Mass Sunday dinners that included “at least 50” members of her extended family.
 

“We would always enjoy eating and just fellowshipping with each other,” said Jackson, recalling that every attendee would have some role in turning out the extensive Sunday menu of barbequed chicken, potato salad, mac and cheese, candied yams, gumbo and boiled seafood.
 

“My role was, whatever my mom was doing, I was there. When she was stirring the pot, I was stirring the pot,” Jackson smiled.
 

When that routine became too much for her aging mother, Jackson would pull up a chair for her in the kitchen, and the older woman would dictate recipes.
 

“That’s where my passion for cooking began  – just having that one-on-one time with my mom while we were cooking.” 
 

NOLA goes to Germany
 

During Jackson’s six years in Germany as an army wife – in Nuremberg and Stuttgart – her mother would send her monthly care packages of local items unavailable in the commissary – things like Tony Chachere’s, garlic and onion powder and fresh yams.

Jackson’s German neighbors would continually press her to make gumbo and red beans, although the latter “didn’t taste like ours,” even when Jackson used her go-to Camellia brand.
 

“The water was different and the seasoning was different from what we were used to,” said Jackson, noting how German butchers would give her the pig tails they normally would throw away as a substitute – albeit a less salty one – for pickle meat.
 

Hobby-turned-business
 

Back in New Orleans, while enjoying margaritas with her girlfriends in 2007, an idea for a business was born.
 

“They’re like, ‘Steph, your food is so good! You really need to be charging people!’” Jackson recalls.
 

Initially skeptical, she put together a test menu for a catered Thanksgiving dinner featuring a grilled or fried turkey and all the trimmings. She sold 45 birds in her first foray.
 

“We were just shocked at the people that wanted all of this! From that point, it just took off,” said Jackson, who quit her job at a local coffee company and launched Bayou Soul Food & Spirits. The business’ offerings include red beans and rice, seafood gumbo, crawfish étouffée, crawfish bisque, shrimp and grits, greens, cornbread dressing, stuffed bell peppers and barbequed chicken and ribs. 
 

Meanwhile, a job cooking for her pastor, Father Anthony Bozeman, led Jackson to serve and ultimately cook at St. Leo’s school cafeteria. For the last two years she has worked as the cafeteria manager at St. Mary’s Academy Elementary, where she and a staff of five prepare breakfast for 130 pre-K through fourth graders and lunch for 250. They also deliver meals to a satellite cafeteria at St. Benedict the Moor Elementary.
 

“You have to go out there and talk to the kids while they’re eating to find out their favorite things,” Jackson said. Hits with the children include “Brunch for Lunch” (chicken and waffles), red beans and rice, meat sauce, chicken and sausage gumbo and “Seafood Boil” – shrimp, potatoes, smoked sausage and corn on the cob.
 

“They love fried okra. They eat their brussels sprouts,” Jackson notes.  “They’re quite honest. They will let you know!”
 

This school year, school cafeterias in the archdiocese are using Jackson’s milk-free, potato-thickened recipe for Shrimp & Corn Bisque. (Her home-kitchen version of the recipe is listed at left).
 

As she does for her seafood quiche, Jackson pre-seasons her shrimp.
 

“That is the key,” she said. “Some people just like to throw it in the frying pan unseasoned; but if you pre-season it, you sear the flavors in the seafood, so you don’t have to add all that extra salt. The flavor is already in there.”