Culinary community rallies, rolls up sleeves to feed hungry victims

It's going to take a long time to recover from the devastation left by Hurricane Katrina — people have lost loved ones, homes and jobs.

It will be awhile before we can even consider the impact on the culinary world. New Orleans is the home of Cajun and Creole cuisine, jambalaya, gumbo, beignets, bananas Foster and Emeril — for starters.

That's not the main concern of Bernhard Gotz, Little America's executive chef, who worked eight years in The Big Easy before moving to Salt Lake City. He's more worried about the fate of his friends, not to mention his house across the lake from the city. Gotz was selling it, with a closing date of Sept. 19. It may be weeks before he finds out if there's anything left of it.

"I've been feverishly trying to call Paul Prudhomme, and many of my other friends, but you can't get through," Gotz said. "I did hear from a friend who worked at Mother's (a New Orleans restaurant). He's in Arkansas, and he might come out here and stay."

As chef at the Sheraton Hotel and president of the New Orleans chef association for four years, Gotz rubbed shoulders with big-name chefs, such as Prudhomme, Emeril Lagasse and Susan Spicer.

"It's a very close culinary community," Gotz said. "It's too early to tell what the damage is, but just the French Quarter alone has so many great restaurants, like K-Paul's, Commander's Palace and Brennan's."

Dave Prows, executive chef for Rumbi Island Grill, cut his culinary teeth in New Orleans restaurants before moving back to Salt Lake City. "The hospitality industry is the largest employer in New Orleans," he said. "What are all those people going to do for work? But they're the most resilient people in the world, though, and they will rebuild."

Prows is an officer of the Beehive Chefs Association, and the group plans to organize a fund-raiser dinner.

Meanwhile, Nation's Restaurant News established www.nrnonline.blogspot.com, where owners and staff of the area's 6,000-plus restaurants can let each other know where they are. It reported that Ella Brennan, the grande dame of Brennan's and Commander's Palace, evacuated to Houston, where her son runs Brennan's of Houston.

Even without restaurants to work in, many cooks are rolling up their sleeves to feed the hungry.

The Chef John Folse Co. in Donaldsonville (about 50 miles west of New Orleans), sent an e-mail to the media and food purveyors, seeking food donations in 60-pound quantities or more to make relief shelter meals. Folse is a TV cooking show host and owns several Louisiana restaurants. I met him last year while covering the Pillsbury Bake-Off.