In the wake of Hurricane Katrina, the Southern Foodways Alliance, in partnership with other organizations including SOFAB, initiated a series of volunteer-staffed Gulf Coast work projects.

One of the efforts has been to rebuild Willie Mae's Scotch House, a revered corner cafe in the Treme neighborhood of New Orleans. Work is ongoing, and donations of skilled labor, cash and materials are still needed.

Much of the effort and the story of Willie Mae Seaton, an 89-year-old James Beard award-winning restaurant owner, has been captured in a short documentary produced by the New Orleans Metropolitan Convention & Visitors Bureau. The film captures Mrs. Seaton’s drive to rebuild, her remarkable spirit and the city’s culinary heritage and legacy.Watch the film.

Southern Curiosity is a newly-opened restaurant in Lexington, N.C. that has heads turning and tongues wagging. Chef and co-owner Robert Simons has successfully assembled an eclectic menu from his arsenal of culinary knowledge and experience to deliver a diverse representation of the cuisine of the Americas to his diners. Rooted in Southern cuisine, Simons’ menu takes diners on a journey from the

Lobster Peach Cobbler

Note: Lightly spiced, the sweetness in the lobster and peaches work well together. The vanilla rice add another dimension to the peaches and the lobster.
Yield: 4 portions - extra cobbler biscuits can be frozen
Portion: 1 tail
Ingredients
Cobbler Recipe (12 Biscuits)
• 2 cups (10 ounces) all-purpose flour
• 6 tablespoons granulated sugar
• 1/2 teaspoon baking powder
• 1/2 teaspoon baking soda
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 6 tablespoons cold unsalted butter, cut into 1/2-inch cubes
• 1 cup buttermilk
• 1 tablespoon Ground Cardamom
• 1 teaspoon Ground Cinnamon
• 1/4 teaspoon Nutmeg
• 1 teaspoon Granulated Sugar

Peaches
• 2 peaches
• 1 cup water
• 1 teaspoon thyme leaves
• 1/4 teaspoon Nutmeg
• 1 teaspoon ground Coriander
• 1/4 teaspoon Cinnamon
• 1/4 cup granulated sugar

Rice
• 1 cup Long grain white rice
• 1.5 cup water
• 1 pinch of salt
• 1 tablespoon vanilla extract

Lobster
• 4 6-8 ounce Lobster tails
• 1 teaspoon Thyme leaves
• 1 teaspoon Red Pepper Flakes
• 1 teaspoon ground coriander
• Enough Clarified butter to cover tails

Preparation Procedures
Cobbler Recipe
1) Adjust rack to middle position and heat oven to 425 degrees.
Line baking sheet with parchment paper.
2) In work bowl of food processor fitted with steel blade, pulse flour, sugar, baking powder, baking soda, and salt to combine. Scatter butter pieces over and process until mixture resembles coarse meal, about 15 one-second pulses. Transfer to medium bowl; add buttermilk and toss with rubber spatula to combine. Using a 11/2- to 1 3/4-inch spring-loaded ice cream scoop, scoop 12 biscuits onto baking sheet, spacing them 11/2 to 2 inches apart.
3) Combine cardamom, cinnamon, nutmeg, sugar. Sprinkle biscuits evenly with mixture and bake until lightly browned on tops and bottoms, about 15 minutes.

Peaches
1) In a pot, bring to the boil enough water to cover the peaches. Score the skin on the peaches. Once at a boil immerse the peaches for a few minutes; just enough to loosen the skin.
2) Remove peaches and immediately cool in iced water bath.
Remove the skins and slice, discarding the pit as well. 3) In a pot combine, peach slices, water, spices and sugar. Over low cook until peaches are just done but still retaining their shape.

Rice
1) Combine in a pot Rice, water and salt. Cook for 20 minutes until rice is soft but still individual grains.
2) Add vanilla extract to rice and stir to incorporate

Lobster
1) Add everything but lobster to pot, bring to 160 F. Add lobsters and cook until done about 5-10 minutes depending on lobster types and size.
2) Remove lobster and slice into medallions.

Turn out Procedures
For each plate
1) Using a sauté pan, add 1 portion of peaches and 1 cobbler biscuit to the same pan. Slowly warm allowing the peaches juices to soften the biscuit.
2) Place warm Vanilla Rice in center of plate
3) Place sliced lobster around the top of the rice
4) Place biscuit on the side of the rice and spoon the peaches across the top of the rice. With the extra sauce spoon lightly over lobster, rice and biscuit.
5) Garnish with minced chives and herb oil if desired

~ Compiled by Addie C. King

Students from the School of Architecture at Clemson University are creating a design for a food museum in New Orleans. SoFAB has shared its vision of a museum with the students and is working with them to create a realistic plan. Virginia San Fratello, Assistant Professor of Architecture, is leading the project. San Fratello said, "Designing a museum of food and drink offers the students an opportunity to explore the relationship between food and architecture. They are looking intimately at the similarities between the preparation of food and the production of space and thinking of materials as raw ingredients to be measured, combined and assembled in order to build architecture." The project has its own website: where you can follow the students’ progress.

I was under the mistaken impression that I had sampled the full gamut of Southern food in New Orleans but it wasn’t until I relocated to Natchez, Miss. following Hurricane Katrina that I realized my education was sorely lacking.

This small town situated on the bluffs of the Mississippi River, 175 miles northwest of New Orleans, is home to the Natchez Literary and Cinema Celebration, now in its 16th year. The theme this year was appropriately titled, “Biscuits, Gumbo, Sweet Tea, and Bourbon Balls: Southern Food and Drink in History, Literature, and Film.” I discovered over the course of four days that my love affair with food did not begin to approach the love Southerners have for their thrice-daily fare.

Lunch at The Carriage House Restaurant at Stanton Hall was a lively affair. We enjoyed crispy fried chicken, hearty chicken gumbo, savory chicken salad, hard-boiled eggs, spicy tomato aspic with a dollop of homemade mayonnaise, frozen fruit salad, and unsweetened tea. My table companions, all Southerners by birth, swapped family recipes accompanied by colorful tales about how they were passed down.

Amid lectures on grits by Stan Woodward, hot tamales by Amy Evans, southern food culture by John T. Edge, southern food oddities by Robert St. John, food in Tennessee Williams’s plays by Kenneth Holditch, and a rousing keynote speech by Jessica Harris, I was left with one abiding truth about Southern Foodways: it’s more than a state of mind, it’s a raison d’être.

~ by Tamara McNeill

SOFAB has made it onto the map, the map at Zingerman’s Roadhouse in Ann Arbour, Michigan. Dots on a huge map gracing a wall of the Roadhouse identify cities and towns across America which have significant culinary significance. New Orleans was added to the map because of the efforts of SOFAB.