Everybody likes pretty pictures and good cheese. Well, maybe not everybody likes cheese, but when you team it up with grapes, chocolate, and other goodies it becomes something altogether different – edible art.

Pretty Pictures, Edible Art & Commerce

Running a startup in any industry is building a plane in midair. You might think you know how fly, but then you hit turbulence. Or you figure out that you need to also know how to sell plane tickets. These days, it’s not enough to know the work, you’ve got to know how to sell it. When you’re an entrepreneur that means selling yourself – more often than not on social media.

Christiaan Mader’s guests on this edition of Out to Lunch Acadiana have both taken the plunge into startup life, in their own ways. What they have in common is that they both sell whimsy and imagination. And in most cases they have to sell it themselves.

Denise Gallagher

Denise Gallagher got her start in advertising, working for 15 years as the art director at BBR, a well-established ad and marketing firm. She bet on herself and left the company in 2013, pursuing a second act as an illustrator for hire and a children’s book author. Her most recent book, Peg Bearskin: A Traditional Newfoundland tale, was published in 2019.

Mandy Osgood

Mandy Osgood co-founded Graze Acadiana in early 2019, in partnership with her mom.

Graze Acadiana creates what they call “foodscapes” – custom, seasonal sharing platters for social gatherings, corporate thank yous, or maybe an evening at home with a big appetite. It’s food that makes you feel good, and the designs are beyond appetizing.

The contents of the foodscapes are all fresh and wherever possible locally sourced, but the Graze Craze itself is imported from Down Under — New Zealand and Australia.

Denise Gallagher, Christiaan Mader, Mandy Osgood at Chopsticks

Out to Lunch is recorded over lunch at Chopsticks restaurant in Lafayette.

Hear more about edible art with Emeril Lagasse on Poppy Tooker’s podcast Louisiana Eats.