Southern Food and Beverage Museum Dedicates Gallery to Leah Chase

NEW ORLEANS, LA: The Southern Food and Beverage Museum announces the dedication and re-naming of the Louisiana Gallery to honor the life work of New Orleans native Leah Chase on July 1 and 2, 2009.

Mrs. Chase, the chef and owner of restaurant Dooky Chase’s, one of the most prominent Creole restaurants in the United States, has earned the title “Queen of Creole Cuisine.” Louisiana Creole cuisine is a melting pot cuisine that blends French cuisine, Spanish cuisine, Caribbean, Mediterranean, United States, and African influences.

Dooky Chase’s was known as a gathering place during the 1960’s for those who participated in the civil rights movement,

including Dr. Martin Luther King, and the walls are filled with Mrs. Chase’s extensive African American art collection.

Mrs. Chase has received many awards both for her culinary genius and her community service including: the coveted New Orleans Times Picayune 1997 Loving Cup Award, the University of New Orleans Entrepreneurship Award, the National Candace Award for one of ten outstanding black women in America, and numerous honors from the culinary world such as the Southern Foodways Alliance’s Lifetime Achievement Award, given to “an individual whom all thinking eaters should know, the sort of person who has made an indelible mark upon our cuisine and our culture, the sort of person who has set regional standards and catalyzed national dialogues.”

Mrs. Chase serves on many organizational boards including the Arts Council of New Orleans, the New Orleans Museum of Art and the Urban League and is the author of three cookbooks.

Mrs. Chase has four children, sixteen grandchildren and four great-grandchildren.

The Southern Food and Beverage Museum will celebrate their first anniversary with the dedication of the Leah Chase Louisiana Gallery in a ceremony on Wednesday, July 1, 2009 at 10 a.m. On

Tuesday evening, July 2^nd, a Gala Celebration will be held with over twenty acclaimed southern chefs participating. Tickets and information may be obtained at www.southernfood.org.

The Southern Food and Beverage Museum was founded in 2004 and is a tax-exempt 501(c)(3) not-for-profit organization based in New Orleans and dedicated to the discovery, understanding and celebration of the food, drink and related culture of the South. Its goal is to be a regional resource focusing on the history of Southern food and beverages.

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