Dooky Chase Cookbook »

Leah Chaseis influence does not end with her work at the restaurant, where she still works ten- to twelve-hour days, seven days a week. In 1997, she was presented with the New Orleans Times-Picayune Loving Cup for the hundreds of hours she dedicated to the New Orleans Museum of Art and other nonprofit organizations in the city. She was the first-ever recipient of the Southern Foodways Allianceis Lifetime Achievement Award in 2000 and, in the same year, was presented with the Ella Brennan Savoir Faire Award for Excellence, conferred by the Louisiana chapter of the American Federation of Chefs. Her nationally televised cooking show, Creole Cooking with Leah Chase, premiered in 2000 and can be seen on PBS affiliates and on the Discovery channel. She is also the author The Dooky Chase Cookbook and, in 2002, was the subject of a biography written by Carol Allen, titled Leah Chase: Listen, I Say Like This. Both are published by Pelican.

"Leah Chase . . . the Queen of Creole Cuisine . . . is one of the hottest chefs in town." -The National Culinary Review

"While reading the cookbook, I could not only 'hear' Leah talking to me about her food, heritage and family, but I could smell and taste the flavor from the great recipes and the great food that has made Dooky Chase's my favorite restaurant." -Joe Cahn, executive director, New Orleans School of Cooking

As the owner and chef extraordinaire of the popular Dooky Chase's Restaurant in New Orleans, Leah Chase has distinguished herself as a community and civic leader through her dedicated involvement with numerous charities and organizations. The preeminent chef in the Dooky Chase kitchen, Mrs. Chase has established a reputation as one of the best purveyors of Creole cuisine in the nation.

Leah Chase started out at the age of eighteen working in a laundry in the French Quarter, but soon found a job at the Colonial Restaurant on Charter Street. It was the first time she had ever seen the inside of a restaurant. In 1946, she married Dooky Chase, Jr., and shortly after entered his family's restaurant business, which would grow into the present day Dooky Chase's. Her husband's mother was running the restaurant, and as Leah says, "Black people had no other place to go, so she had a captive audience." Over the years, as Leah's expertise and popularity grew, she was able to exert more influence upon the cuisine and atmosphere at Dooky Chase's. She successfully grafted her country roots, both in ethics and food, to the black Creole tradition of the city, and soon the restaurant became a reflection of Leah herself, and of the black community as a whole.

Library Journal

The Dooky Chase Restaurant is a New Orleans landmark, famous for Chase's down-home Creole cooking. She offers her favorite recipes here, from Crab Soup and Crawfish Etouffee to Squirrel Pie and Stewed Snapper Turtle, and includes lively reminiscences of her childhood and restaurant experiences. Many of the recipes, however, are available in other regional cookbooks; for larger and area collections.