By Mary Richardson

Chef Amanda Cusey will be looking for the perfect bite at this year’s Rouge et Blanc Food and Wine Event. And $1,000 is riding on her choice.

For the first time, Rouge et Blanc will include a blind tasting of all the food at the event. Cusey, Executive Chef at The Terrace at Lake Area Adventures, has organized the contest, and Lake Area Adventures has put up $1,000 in prize money.

Rouge et Blanc will take place from 3-6 p.m. on Saturday, Oct. 7, on the quad of McNeese State University. The event is known for having great southwest Louisiana food from the best restaurants in the area, all ready to be paired with hundreds of wines.

Rouge et Blanc is a home-grown affair. It began in 2006 as a small fund raiser for the McNeese Banners Series and grew to be the second largest food and wine festival in Louisiana, only behind New Orleans Wine and Food Extravaganza.

Unlike nationally-organized events that come into a town with only a tangential attachment to the area, 100 percent of the proceeds from Rouge et Blanc stay local. The event supports the McNeese Banners Series, which brings more than 21 performances to Lake Charles every year and provides an extensive outreach program into schools and care facilities.

“That’s why we call it ‘A Party with a Purpose,’” says Dr. Brook Hanemann, Director of Banners and Rouge et Blanc. “Each person who buys a ticket and buys wine at the event helps us present concerts, films, dance, theatre, lectures, and more. Each person is really a philanthropist!”

The idea to add a food competition to the event came about when Cusey and Tim Robles, General Manager of LAA, were in Houston at a food competition that included a large cash prize.

“Tim asked me why WE didn’t do this for Rouge et Blanc,” Cusey said. “I asked if he was serious and he said, ‘Yeah! Let’s do it,’” she said, “so we talked to Brook and now it’s part of the event.”

Cusey has recruited a team of five people to judge: Jimbeaux Gilbeaux, owner of Freshko Food Service; Chef Chad Jackson, Culinary Instructor at SOWELA and director of SOWELA’s Culinary Bootcamp; Chef Kevin McCarthy, Executive Chef at L’Auberge Casino Resort; and Shalisa Roland, Director of Public Relations for Visit Lake Charles.

They will have a lot to taste! Restaurants at the event will include 121 Artisan Bistro, The James, Calla, Aubri’s Taqueria, Big Easy Foods, CAMPP at MSU, Coffee:30, Coushatta Casino, Crust Pizza Co, Hi-Licious Street Kitchen, Luna Bar and Grill, Nawal’s Kebab House & Gril, Paul’s Rib Shack, Red Cardinal Desserts, Toga Grill, and more.

The plates of food will be judged in five categories, each worth five points. They are creativity, difficulty, execution, flavor profile, and overall. “We will be asking ourselves how did that bite sit in your mouth,” Cusey said. “We want that one perfect bite!”

Participants at Rouge et Blanc will be able to watch the judging. The panel will be set up in a tent on the quad, and volunteers will bring them plates of food from each restaurant participating in Rouge et Blanc. The judges will not be able to see where the food came from, “to make it more of a blind tasting,” Cusey said.

“Amanda Cusey is the perfect person to organizing this competition,” according to Hanemann. “She has a passion for the foods of southwest Louisiana, and she cares deeply about this community.”

Cusey grew up in Arizona and has lived many places. She says she doesn’t remember a time when she didn’t love food, so it was a natural progression to gravitate toward the food industry. She traveled extensively throughout the United States, all the time picking up the nuances of foods from different regions. She started at the bottom – washing dishes — and eventually enrolled in Cordon Bleu training at the Tante’ Marie Culinary Academy in Surrey, England. She cemented a love of Italian cuisine while working at Fiorentina in Dublin, where she earned the position of Head Chef. Then she worked as Head Chef with Michelin Star-chef Oliver Dunne at his Italian inspired pop-up restaurant, Eatily in Dublin’s city center.

She brought her twist on Italian cooking to Lake Charles when she accepted the position of Executive Chef at Villa Harlequin. While there, she became the second ever “Queen of Louisiana Seafood,” besting 11 other chefs to win the 15th Annual Louisiana Seafood Cook-Off presented by the Louisiana Seafood Promotion & Marketing Board.

She has found that she loves the traditions of Southwest Louisiana cooking. “It’s rich, it’s fresh, it’s just great,” she says, “and I have fallen in love with it. People in this part of the country truly know how to season food.”

She says that she and her panel of judges look forward to tasting every offering at Rouge et Blanc, possibly washed down with a few sips of a good wine. “Tell Claire Bankston that I like a bit of bubbly,” she says (see accompanying story about Savour du Lac). “It’s going to be great.”