225BatonRouge.com

A unifying element of New Orleans’ post-Katrina world is everyone has a story to tell. Stunning and sometimes disgusting, chefs’ stories of cleaning out walk-in refrigerators filled with petrified pork, festering fish and moldy meat are told and retold with a vengeance. Still, chefs’ desires to get back to work were so intense, they braved anything and everything to get back to their craft, open their doors and light their kitchen fires.

Equally astounding was how they fed the immediate needs—first responders’ hunger, locals crying for restaurant life and even their own artistic sensibilities.

One truth always wafted above the stench and steam, hard work and frustration: New Orleans is virtually lost without its food, and the story of how the industry reinvented and reinvigorated itself is now part of our city’s history.

Enter Troy Gilbert and Stacey Meyer. Gilbert is a native New Orleanian and freelance journalist, and Meyer is a Culinary Institute of America-trained chef with kitchen creds in New Orleans and New York, plus a stint with the Food Network.

The pair were so moved by the stories of New Orleans chefs and restaurants they decided to compile them for a book—every lurid, disturbing, hopeful and satisfying one of them.

Chefs in Exile is a work in progress that showcases the stories of New Orleans’ best chefs.

“Every New Orleanian has a Katrina story,” their Web site says. “But some come with recipes.”

The pair are gathering the material “directly through interviews [where chefs evacuated to, what happened to their homes and restaurants, what happened to their staff, etc.]…along with four to five recipes for meals that they cooked while in exile.”

From rough excerpts provided to 225, the book promises to be a feast of words and experiences taken from a list of our most beloved New Orleans chefs and restaurants, including Jack Leonardi of Jaques Imo’s, Frank Brigtsen of Brigtsen’s, John Besh of August, Ryan Hughes of Café Degas, Susan Spicer of Bayonna, Scott Boswell of Stella! and Stanley and Tory McPhail of Commander’s Palace.

cookinginexile.com.