Friends and family have always called Gaye Spaht and Abigail Spaht Ricks “old souls.” The Lafayette mother-daughter pair think the nickname is understandable, given their love of home cooking, preserving, pickling and sauce-making. But they also consider it a compliment – so much so that when they started a business at the LSU AgCenter’s Food Incubator in 2013, Old Soul Pickles was printed on old-fashioned apron-shaped labels.

That relaxed down-home feel continues in the duo’s packaging, staging, and marketing. “Just the best pickles you’ll ever eat,” goes their slogan. “No big dill!”

Abigail says she and her mom have been cooking together since she was a little girl, and they bring a sense of history and art into their recipes and processing. In fact, the first dish mom taught was how to make a cucumber salad. “How appropriate that we now have a pickle line together,” says Abigail. “Like so many Southern ladies, we could live on hors d’oeuvres!”

Couldn’t we all! To wit, here are bite-sized bits of information about Old Soul Pickles and the local foodie pair who work tirelessly to bottle up farm-to-table goodies for the rest of us:

Miles product travels to our store: less than 10

Favorite chef/food mentor: Ina Garten

Favorite day of the week: Saturday

Favorite form of social media: Instagram (follow at oldsoulpickles)

Favorite Louisiana dish: rice and gravy with petit pois peas – comfort food!

Favorite holiday: Christmas

Favorite season: Tie between fall and spring

Favorite seasoning: Slap Ya Mama

Favorite kitchen tool: paring knife

Biggest surprise about small business: You really get to be yourself. It’s YOUR business!

Best part of your job: The wonderful people we meet and interact with.

Toughest part of your job: the “business” side of things

Words to live by: This, too, shall pass. Important to remember when times are tough, but also to savor the moments when times are great!

Advice to others with a business dream: Get a bookkeeper from the start – SO worth it, take all the advice you can get, and HAVE FUN!