I was just thinking about some of the great chefs that touched my culinary heart. Leaha Chase is immortal in my mind Her restaurant Dooky Chase's 5th Ward location was flooded by Hurricane   Katrina and was not scheduled to reopen until the summer of 2006. To save Chase's African-American art collection from damage, her grandson placed the art collection in storage. The New Orleans restaurant community got together on April 14, 2006 (Holy Thursday) to hold a benefit, charging $75 to $500 per person for a gumbo z'herbes, fried chicken, and bread pudding lunch at a posh French Quarter restaurant. The guests consumed 50 gallons of gumbo and raised $40,000 for at that time the  82-year-old Mrs. Chase. Dooky Chase restaurant was scheduled to open April 5, 2007It opened mostly for take-out and special events due to shortage of trained waitstaff. But  she preserved and today she’s open and still cooking at the ripe age of 93.  
In the 2012 revival of Tennessee Williams's classic New Orleans play A Streetcar Named Desire, which had an all-African-American cast, a mention of the restaurant Galatoire's (which was segregated during the play's post-war 1940s time period) was changed to a mention of Dooky Chase's Restaurant, which was integrated.
This culinary dynamo brought back the great creole culinary culture of New Orleans. She is one of one of America’s greatest chefs.  She cooks from the heart because she inspires me to cook every day, just because she’s Leaha

An after thought

So tomorrow Morning  I’m cooking   Eggs Sardou and Shrimp Etouffee in honor of her. Just thinking of her makes me want to cook for my great lady and wife Jean of 40 years married to me. So in good taste reservations are required but we have only one table with one seat open for Leaha personal choice and who she would like to invite.