Louisiana Eats: Miss Ella Of Commander's Palace

On this week's show, we celebrate Commander's Palace and its visionary matriarch Ella Brennan, whose highly-anticipated memoir is coming out next week.

Miss Ella Brennan

First, we speak with Ella’s daughter and co-author, Ti Adelaide Martin. Born into her family’s restaurant dynasty, Ti knows all too well her mother’s revered place both in the food industry and in New Orleans history.  Aware of the fascination with her mother’s life story, Ti wrote down a number of stories about Ella over the years that she eventually incorporated into the memoir.

Next, we speak to the book’s illustrator, Tim Trapolin, whose line drawings complement each chapter in the book. Tim’s work has long graced menus as well as walls within Brennan family restaurants and he also illustrated Ti and Lally’s book, In The Land of Cocktails. Tim discusses his involvement with the project and what it was like to depict some of Ella’s most harrowing moments using pen and ink.

Then, the Brennan family tells the story of Ella Brennan’s culinary impact in their own words, from Ella’s coming-of-age to her most transformative moments at Commander’s Palace.

We’d like to congratulate Miss Ella and the entire Brennan family for having the vision and determination to forever change America’s food scene, and to bravely tell her amazing story in the new memoir, Miss Ella of Commander’s Palace, available September 13 in bookstores everywhere.