Chasing Leah

Thursday, December 15: “Are you Betsy? Betsy, get that belly outta my face.” I tug down my t-shirt, pull up my hip-huggers and grab an apron. I’ve driven 71 miles, past hurricane evacuation route signs and flapping pelicans, to Baton Rouge to help Leah Chase cater a party at the home of Donna and Dr. John Fraiche. The spectacular Provençal-style house is dressed in Dresden chandeliers, a Portuguese carved-wood, four-poster bed, floors and ceilings imported from France. There's a 2600-bottle wine cellar heavy with Burgundy. The Doberman bites me on the way in. Allegedly she wants to play.

Leah Chase is standing at a monstrous La Cornue stove. She’s heating crab soup and shrimp Creole, warming corn muffins, frying chicken. She dunks the breasts in eggs and evaporated milk, then flour, salt and pepper. She’s got Willie Davis, who works for the Fraiches but used to cook with Warren LaRuth, pounding the breasts in seasoned bread crumbs. She’s got her daughters, Leah and Stella, setting the buffet and laying out the seven-layer dip. She’s got me doing some of everything. “Betsy, put that right there for me . . . Watch it, baby! There you go, kiddo.” And she’s talking all the while. “I’ve been cooking 60 years. When I came to Dooky Chase, I waited tables. But you don’t go into this business unless you know something about the back part. It’s trial and error at first. You don’t know what the heck you’re doing.”

She’s got me dumping the oysters into a panful of Zatarain’s Wonderful Fish-Fri. “Whew! That’s too much. Take some off there.” I put a handful of oysters back in the strainer. “They’ll get too dark. See, they gotta be dry when I put ‘em in the grease, or they’ll be soggy.” I toss the oysters, praying they’re dry. “Frying is something I never mastered. To do it well, you have to keep doing it. At the restaurant, I always have someone else fry.”

“Get a little paprika and just tap it in there,” she instructs me. “That way they’ll come up a little golden.” Leah moves slowly back to the stove. “When I get back in this restaurant, I got to find me some people. I know I better get back there for Mardi Gras day. That’s for damned sure.” Her hand caked in Zatarain’s Wonderful Fish-Fri, she drops the oysters into hot oil. “At my age, you can’t waste time.”

Dooky Chase, the 64-year-old Creole-soul food house that 82-year-old Leah Chase ran, was located in the Tremé, across from the Lafitte projects. Featured in a song by Ray Charles, fêted by locals and visitors, a pioneer of ’60s-era integration where blacks and whites could eat together, it was a New Orleans institution. Now, “nothing’s at Dooky Chase. It’s sunk. It’s gutted out.” The Chases are trying to rebuild, but their homes were destroyed, and it’s a long drive from where they’re staying – 12 of them – under one Baton Rouge roof.

“Work is so plentiful now, it’s hard to get contractors to concentrate on one job,” says Stella. “I don’t blame them. Everybody lost everything.” FEMA installed two trailers for the family outside Dooky Chase. One of them's already been stolen. “That was an inside job,” Leah says. “You can’t blame the brothers across the street ‘cuz there are no brothers across the street right now.”

“Did you dip them in the egg wash?” she asks Willie Davis, who’s holding a bowl of pickle slices. “There’s no secret to cooking,” Leah says, turning the pickles out of the grease. “People say, ‘I can’t do it like you.’ Well, you’re not me, so it can’t come out like me.” The fried pickles are sharp and salty and addictive. “Those girls,” she gestures toward her daughters, “will do better than I did. They’ll have chefs, which is what you should do.”

Actually, it’s what they’ll have to do. Though Leah’s niece has worked with her for years (“She’s real good at desserts. I don’t like desserts. You have to be too accurate.”), neither of her daughters cooks. Still, the Chases are determined. “I have to go back.” Leah pours a bottleful of rum into her bananas Foster sauce, “boozing it up real good.” She plates the white-chocolate bread pudding. “They want me to stay here, sounds good,” she says. Baton Rouge has been generous to them. Strangers have brought furniture, leant cars. Leah’s been teaching classes at a local cookware store. “But if I leave that space, it will be . . ,” she makes a sound like a tire deflating and flattens out her hands. “So you go back and make a community. Everyone plants a little flower out front. I can’t leave the neighborhood. I have to build it back up.”

“I doubt it’ll happen,” says one of Leah Chase’s younger family members when I’m introduced to her at a party that night. The odds against Dooky Chase seem insurmountable. But if this is what Leah wants, maybe. Just maybe. “She’s so stubborn, no one can tell her what she can and can't do.”

Back at the Fraiches, between swearing that there was no meat in her beans, "just lots of thyme", and calling me a “foreigner” and telling me about a sliced pork chop and fried oyster sandwich with cold butter that’s her “all-time favorite thing,” Leah Chase had leaned in and said to me, “My kids say that’ll be on my tomb stone: ‘You do what you gotta do.’”

Comments

[Sabiyha Prince]

I just read Soul food baby, exurban and chasinig Leah. Thanks for this wonderful ethnographic view of what is going on with restaurants in post-Katrina NOLA. Ms. Andrews, as both an anthropologist and a wonderful food writer, has a great eye and an adventerous spirit. I like her humor and I am personally familiar with her compassion. I am especially grateful for her inclusion of such important African American instiutions as Dokey Chase's - a place I have eaten in more than once. The last time I was there was following a "celebrity" tour of Cancer Alley. I sat next to actor and anti-death penalty activist Mike Farrell as we talked food and politics.

I commend Food and Wine for devoting some space to black owned usinesses. I am going to subscribe the the blog feed. Keep up the good work and I will continue to read!

[Dave Witt]

Go Leah!
We hear so much about devastation
and demise on the news feeds.

It's Leah's spirit that ought to be
reminding everyone that impossible
things happen when people try.

Now if there's something can be done
about the other "inside job" - that is
the new "reconstruction" ...
-dave witt

[Dr. Claudia Signal Leon, The Creole Gourmet]

Recently, while cursorily gleaning the articles that appeared in the Saturday, December 31, 2005 edition of The Times Picayune, during my customary weekly update as to the progress being made to rebuild New Orleans in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina, I had the pleasure of perusing the written account of your interview with Brett Anderson, Times Picayune Restaurant Writer. In said article, you discuss the post-Hurricane Katrina state of New Orleans, the Treme community, and Dooky Chase’s, and outline your intention to rebuild not only your restaurant, but the community as well. Further, and most interesting to me, you mention your need for a Chef to assist you in the restaurant. I was, Chef Chase, wholeheartedly moved by your passion, inspired by your words and the kindredness of your spirit. I am writing to you as a fellow native New Orleanian (Gentilly/New Orleans East resident, Immaculate Heart of Mary Parish) seeking a prodigal return home, and recent Creole gourmet chef “debutante”, in the hopes that you might consider allowing me to help you.

Six months ago, after devoting some twenty-two years to the study of the disciplines of law and linguistics, I decided to take a brief sabbatical. Cooking has always been therapeutic for me, and, as such, it was the perfect outlet by which to relax and to regroup. An Atlanta transient, I am the product of generations of excellent Creole cooks, and have a natural talent for preparing exceptional traditional recipes tempered with a Nouvelle Creole flair, including but not limited to gumbos, bouillabaisses, etouffees, bisques, farcis, and a plethora of other palatable delights that are too numerous to mention herein. For many years, I had been vehemently urged by friends, family and those who might have the occasion to sample my dishes to cook professionally, and it was the general consensus that I had truly missed my calling. I was lovingly nicknamed “The Creole Gourmet.”

In July, 2005, I began seriously researching the culinary arts, with primary focus on diversity as it existed on television relative to the profession. During the course of my research, I happened across Saute, the brain product of one Milton C. Watkins, Jr., who was in the process of organizing the first annual Saute Wine & Food Festival, to be held in Atlanta in August, 2005. Upon contacting Mr. Watkins to inquire about volunteering to assist the chefs at the festival, he extended to me an offer to participate as a featured chef. I graciously accepted, participated in the festival, and received rave reviews from the other chef participants and patrons alike. It was then that I experienced an epiphany of sorts, and The Creole Gourmet sprouted wings and began to soar. Since that time, the strategic alliance with Saute has solidified and there has been an overwhelming influx of contacts from local frozen food conglomerates, restaurants and wineries. Discussions with Mr. Watkins regarding more events and the actual presenting of the show to various and sundry television stations for broadcast ensued and have intensified immensely.

Then came Katrina, which not only completely destroyed my primary residence in New Orleans East, but also that of my 84-year old father, who lived in Gentilly in the home in which I was raised. My father now resides here with me in Atlanta, but is deeply depressed and yearns to return to New Orleans. I fear for both his mental and physical health, and, consequently, have decided to return home with him. In my heart-of-hearts, I know that I should be home, and though I have made a life anew in Atlanta, New Orleans will always be home to me. It is time, Chef Chase, for me to come home. I know what it means to miss New Orleans. The words in your interview and the sentiment expressed resound in my mind and my heart, and have stirred me to action. You are a true inspiration!

Sincerely,
THE CREOLE GOURMET
Claudia Signal Leon, LL.B., Ph.D.

P.S. Happy Birthday, Chef!

[Robyn Honora]

I would love to purchase one of your cookbooks. Can you tell me how to get one. I live in Baton Rouge and would prefer to purchase it directly from you and would love it to be signed by you. Please let me know how I might be able to do this. Thanks.

[Layemyinesy]

Hello
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[leverne Baptiste]

Chef Chase, its so good to know you are still with us. I am 55 years old now and I can remember you from living on Roman St and Orleans Ave. from a very young girl and when you and Mr Chase and his mother ran the restaurant and ate a many shrimp and oyster loaves on Fridays. How I miss your restaurant so much living in San Diego,Ca. I tell you these people know absolutely nothing about good tasty foods of New Orleans, my forever home at heart especially when you are still there cooking. My name is Leverne and hope to come down and see you again soon one day. Keep up the good work and spirit of our true home New Orleans.

[Leverne Baptiste]

Chef Chase, its so good to know you are still with us. I am 55 years old now and I can remember you from living on Roman St and Orleans Ave. from a very young girl and when you and Mr Chase and his mother ran the restaurant and ate a many shrimp and oyster loaves on Fridays. How I miss your restaurant so much living in San Diego,Ca. I tell you these people know absolutely nothing about good tasty foods of New Orleans, my forever home at heart especially when you are still there cooking. My name is Leverne and hope to come down and see you again soon one day. Keep up the good work and spirit of our true home New Orleans.

[Leverne Baptiste]

Chef Chase, its so good to know you are still with us. I am 55 years old now and I can remember you from living on Roman St and Orleans Ave. from a very young girl and when you and Mr Chase and his mother ran the restaurant and ate a many shrimp and oyster loaves on Fridays. How I miss your restaurant so much living in San Diego,Ca. I tell you these people know absolutely nothing about good tasty foods of New Orleans, my forever home at heart especially when you are still there cooking. My name is Leverne and hope to come down and see you again soon one day. Keep up the good work and spirit of our true home New Orleans.

[Melissa]

Hello
Your restaurant is beautiful. There is a piece of artwork on your wall that I really want to know more about. It is a picture of what looks like children standing side by side in different shades and colors. Its a off white background and rusty red top curvy border. on the end is a darker complexioned girl with brown dress and yellow hair, then a very fair boy in green with yellow hair followed bu a brown haired boy in red.
I would love to know who the artist is and how to find it.
Thank you so much
Melissa

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