If you grew up in an average home – or you’re growing up in an average home today – “business” can seem like something very foreign. Something that people who wear suits do. Something that requires going to business school. And that means spending your life in a boring office, going to meetings, and being that obnoxious person at the airport obsessively pounding away at a laptop.

If that’s what you think going into business means, Peter Ricchiuti’s guests on this edition of Out to Lunch are going to open up a whole new world for you.

Lisa Crane taught herself to ice cakes by watching The Food Network. This was even before YouTube. Lisa worked in a bakery in Echo Louisiana, moved to Pineville, and finally to Ville Platte where, in 2015, she opened her own business – the Uptown Cake Company. Business is booming and the shop is already expanding. 

Chad Monceaux is a fireman in Crowley, Louisiana. Crowley, as you probably know, is “the rice capital of the world,” and when he’s not putting out fires, Chad is the Vice Chairman of Crowley’s International Rice Festival. If you’ve never been to the festival, this is not like organizing a middle school bake sale – it’s more like putting on Lollapalooza. The festival costs nearly a million dollars to stage and in a town of 13,000 people, the festival attracts 300,000 visitors. 

Troy Primeaux – who almost everybody calls Primo –  is a musician, a music producer and an ecologist with a degree in sustainable agriculture. 10 years ago Primo started growing peppers. Today he grows over 70 varieties of peppers – including what is measurably the hottest pepper in the world. And Primo’s wife, Kara, uses Primo’s Peppers in her popular line of products, The Farmer’s Daughter Pepper Jellies.

Photos at Pete’s by Gwen Aucoin.