Photos by Chanelle Harris of CPC Visuals
In February of 2022, Chef Dwynesha “Dee” Lavigne founded Deelightful Roux School of Cooking, following in the footsteps of her heroine, the late Chef Lena Richard. It’s been over eighty years since a Black woman has owned a cooking school in New Orleans, ever since Richard closed hers—the first—to pursue opportunities in New York City in the 1940s.
Richard’s remarkable career as a chef, cookbook author, restaurateur, frozen food entrepreneur, and cooking school operator set the standard for New Orleans cuisine and Creole cooking during the first half of the twentieth century—a time when Black people, especially Black women, faced the historic oppression and obstacles of the Jim Crow South.
In 1939, she self-published New Orleans Cook Book, the first Creole cookbook written by a Black person—which was later republished by Houghton-Mifflin. In 1949, Richard became the first Black woman to host a television cooking show, Lena Richard’s New Orleans Cook Book, altering the perception of Creole food by highlighting its Black roots. Her show, taped at WDSU in New Orleans, preceded Julia Child’s The French Chef by over a decade and challenged the perceptions of wealthy white families who watched her (the ones who could own a television), who were used to Black women’s presence in the kitchen solely as domestic workers.
It was 2017 when Lavigne first learned of Richard’s legacy. With a degree from the Culinary Institute of America at Hyde Park, New York, and fifteen years of experience in running pastry departments around the country for Whole Foods Markets—Lavigne, a native of New Orleans’s Ninth Ward, had just launched Deelightful Cupcakes, a baking business focusing on top notch, lavishly-adorned cupcakes and cakes.
She soon had contracts with 1-800 Flowers and Shari’s Berries, as well as a strong private following. She was also a frequent host of the kitchen segment of the WWL Sunday Morning Show. Then, in March 2020, the COVID-19 pandemic drove her business down to a sputter as office buildings closed, hospitals rejected deliveries, and people stuck at home started baking on their own. The WWL newsroom closed to outside guests.
In June of that year, Lavigne received a request from The Smithsonian Institute, asking her to be the “voice” of Lena Richard by reading from one of her essays for an episode of the podcast Sidedoor, which would be dedicated to Richard’s memory as “America’s Unknown Celebrity Chef.”
Photos by Chanelle Harris of CPC Visuals
Chef Dwynesha "Dee" Lavigne opened her Deelightful Roux School of Cooking in the Southern Food and Beverage Museum in early 2021.
Two months later, the Smithsonian came calling again, this time asking Lavigne to join in for the Smithsonian Associates’ Cooking Up History series—for which she would prepare a classic Creole shrimp bisque from Richard’s cookbook while discussing over Zoom the life, times, and influence Richard had on American cuisine.
Still struggling from the financial effects of the pandemic, Lavigne knew that when it came to her own career, it was time to pivot. She asked herself, “What would Lena Richard do?”
She approached The Southern Food & Beverage Museum with the idea to open a cooking school inside the museum. “I told them that I wanted to do something that would change history,” she said, in an interview with Very Local.
"I told them that I wanted to do something that would change history."
—Chef Dwynesha "Dee" Lavigne
Today Lavigne weaves lessons on Louisiana and Southern history through her hands-on Creole and Cajun cooking classes. Each class is two-and-a-half hours long with a maximum of ten participants. Students do everything from peeling shrimp, chopping seasoning, and making a roux, to peeling bananas then flambéing them for Bananas Foster. In each class students work their way through an appetizer, an entrée, and a dessert, and everything is covered from prep to cooking. Each class includes a guided tour through the museum’s galleries of the Southern states. People come from around the world to attend her classes. Following the tour, she sits with students as they eat the meal they have prepared and answers their questions about culinary techniques, Southern history, and more.
As a woman chef, Richard said she wants to draw attention to Lena Richard and the many other women who have cooked professionally in New Orleans and elsewhere with very little recognition.
“This is something I can give to my children, my grandchildren. Like Lena, I want to nurture the next generation of culinary entrepreneurs for the city.”
Classes at Deelightful Roux School of Cooking are available on Tuesdays, Thursdays, and Fridays at 11 am. Private classes, birthday parties, and corporate events are reserved for weekends. Lavigne has plans to expand into evening and specialty classes for Valentine’s Day and the like. To book a class, visit southernfood.org or call (504) 569-0405.
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