Southern roots run strong for many expats who moved to our river city from the low country of the Carolinas or the Cajun and Creole corners of the Pelican State. And for three decades, the unstoppable Louisiana Sue Ramon has been helping those castaways from the land of moss-draped oak trees get an elegiac taste of their culture in the greater Sacramento region, not to mention helping Northern Californians sample the food, music and energy that make the sleepy, catfish-jumping dreamland between Georgia and Mississippi so entrancing.
For 2025, Ramon is hosting her annual Crawfish & Catfish Festival as a free, open block party in Rancho Cordova, a new site from the festival’s previous location in recent years at Sacramento’s Southside Park. Ramon stresses that the same steamy, clawed dishes and smokin’ blues music that locals have come to love will be on full display at the re-envisioned Rancho site. The gala goes down Saturday, Sept. 27 between 11 a.m. and 6 p.m. at KP International Market at 10971 Olson Drive.
Two chefs that Ramon has come to rely on for bringing the taste will be on-hand, Lashunda Cormier, founder of Sacramento’s Louisiana Heaven, and the great Savory Dave, the man behind Savory Dave BBQ catering around the Capital. Cormier’s Louisiana Heaven food truck will be serving up boiled crawfish party bags that contain boiled crawfish, shrimp, corn and potatoes, as well as catfish and boudin balls. As always, Savory Dave will be pit-mastering alligator for sandwiches, along with making plates of 16-hour smoked brisket, Cajun crawfish Etouffée, smoked BBQ jambalaya and smoked Cajun surf and turf…