Louisiana cuisine is famous for its bold, flavorful dishes like gumbo, jambalaya, and crawfish étouffée. Stemming from rich French, Spanish, African, and Native American influences, our world famous fare is illuminated primarily through Cajun and Creole traditions, using local seafood, smoked meats, rice, and spices for iconic meals.

Take my favorite Louisiana dish, gumbo, for instance. There are certain ingredients, flavors, and texture to be expected in every delicious spoonful of gumbo. Yet, everyone’s idea of a perfect gumbo is different, depending often on family recipes and traditions for making gumbo. Here, at the award-winning Mansurs on the Boulevard, gumbo is made with chicken, duck, and andouille sausage, making for a rich and flavorful stew. 

Arguably, it's both the ingredients and care that go into making gumbo that makes it special. Most Louisianans would argue that making gumbo is an art. 

Much like a chef making gumbo, my lunch guests, Veni Harlan and Madeline Johnson, are creative entrepreneurs combining and utilizing multiple disciplines to build thriving businesses in the Baton Rouge community. 

A multidisciplinary creative, Veni Harlan of Veni Harlan Creative, has enjoyed a varied career as a graphic designer, photographer, art director, and writer. As a communications specialist, Veni uses these creative disciplines to solve communication problems for clients—everything from bank reports and toys to packaging, billboards, food shoots and location work. 

Veni’s work often intersects with Louisiana culture and environment, for instance when she helped brand the Louisiana Shrimp Coalition, rebranded the Louisiana Black Bear Coalition, or co-founded Marsh Dog, a nutria-based dog treat company, as a way to address coastal erosion and combat invasive nutria, while building a business.

Madeline Johnson, owner of Miss Madeline’s, holds two licenses that rarely go together: speech-language pathologist and licensed barber. Like a contestant on the reality shows Cooked or Guy’s Grocery Games, Madeline has taken two seemingly unrelated professions to start a business that provides an essential but overlooked service for people with special needs.

During and after the pandemic, Madeline began a barber apprenticeship while working in speech therapy at Our Lady of the Lake Children’s Hospital. She passed the barber board just weeks after finishing her master’s degree. 

In January 2025, Madeline decided to combine her two fields and launched Miss Madeline’s, an atypical hair salon that looks and feels more like a therapy room. Unlike other salons, Miss Madeline’s offers minimal decor in neutral tones and sensory tools like Pop-Its, a weighted lion, and textured toys. The hour-long hair appointments take into consideration the full sensory system — visual, auditory, tactile, smell and movement — because a typical salon experience can be overstimulating for Madeline’s roster of 150 clients, all of whom are kids or adults with sensory differences.

Out to Lunch is recorded live over lunch at Mansurs on the Boulevard. You can find photos from this show by  Ian Ledo and Miranda Albarez at itsbatonrouge.com.