Free Spirit

Chef Ronda Doucet of Cotton Culinary Catering

Chef’s Spotlight • By Karla Wall

By Karla WallTalking for just a few moments to chef Ronda Doucet, it becomes clear she’s a free spirit. Though she’s worked in a few of the area’s hottest establishments, including a brief stint at Brown Bag Café in Moss Bluff, she’s more content with jobs that fuel her love of travel and adventure. 

Like most chefs, Ronda learned to cook, and to love doing so, as a child in her family’s kitchen.

Chef Ronda Doucet

“My parents taught me to love cooking,” she says. “They still love working together in the kitchen to this day.” Her own daughter, now 14, has been cooking since she was 8.

While Ronda loves cooking all types of food, she says her passion is Italian and Mexican dishes. “But I love cooking all of it,” she says. She’s had no formal training, she says, but has learned from the many great chefs she’s worked under. 

“A chef from Chicago taught me to make deep-dish pizza to die for,” she says. “I’ve learned to cook Asian food from chefs I’ve worked under.”

Ronda began her professional career at 18 upon graduation from high school, taking a job as a food runner for the buffet at Grand Casino Coushatta. She rose in the ranks to level-one and level-two cook, then to elite cook at Coushatta’s Gumbeaux Oyster and Sports Bar. 

The Coushatta job was followed by stints at L’Auberge and Isle of Capri. In fact, she worked part-time positions at both venues for a time. 

But that free spirit led her to take a job a bit more out of the ordinary. She went to work as a cook on an offshore supply vessel, cooking for 40 to 50 people daily, 28 days on and 14 off. 

“I loved the ocean, being alone and away from crowds. I didn’t have to deal with clients. I was up at 4 am, so I always got to see the sun rise. And the view was always beautiful.”

When the oil industry slowed down in 2013, she went back to Coushatta for a while, to work for her former executive chef at the Isle of Capri, who’d taken a position there. She also went to work part-time for Cotton Culinary Catering in Lake Charles, where she still works. 

She also worked for a time at one of the employee camps for industrial contract workers.

When Chef Chris Wise of Brown Bag Café posted on Facebook that he was looking for a sous chef, Ronda got in touch. 

“He messaged me back the same day,” she says.  So she left Cotton Culinary Catering to work full-time at Brown Bag. Again, that free spirit would compel her to leave — after three months. “It just wasn’t for me,” she says.

She’s now at Cotton’s full-time, doing off-site catering, often for up to 1,200 people. The variety suits her, she says.

“We’ve done PR events at Cameron LNG, Axiall and other industrial facilities,” she says. “We’ve done parties and weddings. We’ve done a teacher’s appreciation event for a local school.”

But Ronda is already looking beyond the horizon. 

“I want to cook and travel everywhere,” she says simply. “There’s so much to see out there.” 

To that end, she’s about to hire on, she tells me, as a traveling chef in Alaska. 

Another trait Ronda shares with most chefs is that her biggest thrill is seeing people enjoy her food.

“I love to see the smiles,” she says. 

And, also, like most chefs, she says cooking is her form of artistic expression. 

“It’s an art form,” she says. “It opens up a whole world.” 

She’s deeply spiritual, and has worked with Water’s Edge Church as a cook for church functions and their outreach programs. 

“I’ve always felt my craft is a spiritual gift,” she says. “It’s a God-given gift. And I want to help others.”

She’s done a lot of volunteer cooking on her own, as well, including one memorable Thanksgiving feast. 

“I was home alone that Thanksgiving, in 2015 or 2016, and I just felt led to cook for others,” she says. “So I did the entire thing — I went shopping for a Thanksgiving dinner for 50 people, and bought takeout containers to pack everything in. I cooked all night that night, and had about 50 plates. I went through Moss Bluff, DeQuincy … all over Southwest Louisiana. I handed several plates to a nurse to take to a hospital for her staff. I sat in the Kroger Parking lot handing out dinners.”

Beyond the position in Alaska, Ronda says she’d love to do missionary work overseas, especially in Africa.

“I would just love to cook for and feed the kids of Africa,” she says. “I’d love to be able to change someone’s life.”