Flour, water, salt and time are the basic elements of a loaf of bread. Graison Gill, owner of Bellegarde Bakery in New Orleans, takes these ingredients to the highest level to create praise-worthy loaves. Each ingredient is sourced with care and an emphasis on building relationships with each producer. Select varieties of wheat and heirloom corn arrive at his bakery as whole grains and are stone-milled on site before being mixed and shaped by hand. The milled grains are also packaged in small batches, then find their way into kitchens where chefs and home bakers can create at their whim.

One of the first things I do when I visit a city is search for good bread, the farmer’s market, and the makers and growers who are devoted to these crafts. I met Graison at a farm to table dinner at Bartlett Farm in Folsom, Louisiana shortly after moving to Baton Rouge from West Virginia. The event was a trifecta of the South Louisiana local foods scene. I took my seat at the table where gorgeous loaves of bread served as the centerpiece, delightful sensory overload! Throughout the meal I raved about the bread, which I learned at the dessert course was baked by the young man across from me.

The praise for Bellegarde Bakery extends far beyond Louisiana. Last year, Gill was on the cover of Food and Wine’s Makers issue and is a 2020 James Beard Award finalist in the Outstanding Baker category. He and his staff continue to pivot on demand, adding walk-up service to complement curbside pickup and online orders (for flour and pasta) to their retail offerings.

What’s your 20 minute recipe? My cooking is pretty informal. I work with what I have. I recently made some roasted sausages from Terranovas on Esplanade and served them with tomatoes from my garden and radishes from my produce box from Grow Dat Youth Farm and couscous from the bakery cooked in chicken stock. I use olive oil from Texas and Avery Island salt.

What’s your favorite city? I love Biarritz a lot, in southwestern France.

What’s your favorite restaurant in your current city? Saba and Compere Lapin.

Treasured find in the back of your fridge? I keep a pretty tight ship in there, it’s hard to hide things. I guess some tahini from Soom.

Who taught you to cook? My mom and my grandmother.

What’s your go-to dish for company? Something nice from the bakery. Pasta with a salad from my garden or Grow Dat.

Surf? or Turf? Surf.

What’s on your cooking playlist? I listen to WWOZ a lot.

Coffee, tea, or Kombucha? Coffee. A lot of coffee. Congregation Coffee from Algiers. We have it at the bakery.

Date night—at home? or out? Date night at home is good. We are ready for places to open back up.

Most stained cookbook? Cooking by Hand by Paul Bertolli. He was executive chef at Chez Panisse.

Indispensable kitchen tool? Immersion blender.

Staple childhood comfort food? My grandmother’s beef roulade.

Go-to olive oil? Texas Olive Ranch

Who would you most like to share a meal with? past, present or fictional? My grandfather.

How do you like your toast? Warm to the touch, not crunchy.

Ideal grilled cheese? The one with the mayo on the outside, on sourdough wheat.

Favorite pizza topping? Margherita

Where would you want to take a cooking class? A Basque cooking school sounds good.

What’s your Counter Intelligence cooking tip? Don’t refrigerate bread. If you’re refrigerating your bread, you’re buying the wrong kind of bread.

What’s your favorite sports team? There’s a hockey team I like, the Nordiques from Quebec. They became the Colorado Avalanche.

Slow food at its finest. Roasting whole Italian sausages in a hot oven with garden tomatoes is quick to make and long on flavor. Serve with couscous from Bellegarde Bakery and elevate this simple dish to a fantastic feast.

Roasted Sausage with Tomatoes and Couscous

Sauce makes itself when you high-heat roast sausage and tomatoes. I added a handful of fresh basil in place of the radishes.

4 links Italian sausage
1 tablespoon olive oil
1 pint cherry tomatoes
Salt and pepper, red pepper flakes to taste
Handful of fresh basil, roughly chopped, for serving

HEAT oven to 400

DRIZZLE about half the olive oil in an ovenproof skillet (10-12”, large enough to hold the sausages and tomatoes in a single layer) and heat over a medium high burner. Lay the sausages and tomatoes in the skillet, drizzle the remaining olive oil over the tomatoes, and give the skillet a shake to quickly blister the sausages on each side, or use tongs to turn them.

PLACE the skillet in the oven and roast until sausages are cooked through and tomatoes are soft and blistered, about 15 minutes. The juices from the sausage and tomatoes make a lovely sauce with the bit of olive oil.

TRANSFER the sausages and tomatoes to 4 plates, sprinkle with basil and pass salt and pepper to taste. Red pepper flakes are a nice addition. Serve with couscous

Cooking Bellegarde Couscous

The couscous from Bellegarde is coarser than most packaged couscous, therefore takes more than a quick steaming in boiling water. Allow about 8-10 minutes for cooking into tiny nut brown pearls.

2 to 3 cups stock or water
1 cup Bellegarde couscous
salt to taste

BRING the stock or water to boil in a small saucepan. Whisk in the couscous and salt and cook at a low boil, stirring occasionally, until al dente, about 8-10 minutes. If using the greater quantity of liquid, drain in a fine-mesh sieve, reserving the cooking liquid for another use. (I cooked one cup in three cups of homemade chicken stock. There was about a cup of luscious whole wheat-infused stock remaining which I refrigerated and used the next day to make a light cream sauce)