"Fried Chicken and Sweet Potato Pie"

Did that heading make you 'ono (hungry)? It is the title of a 21 minute documentary about celebrated Southern chef and author, Miss Edna Lewis, which was filmed, produced and directed by gifted filmmaker Bailey Barash of Georgia.

Bailey wrote to me, I imagine, because I've cited the subjects of her documentary, Miss Edna Lewis and Scott Peacock, as two of my culinary heroes in my blog.
Her note follows:

Hello -I am a filmmaker in Atlanta. I just wanted to let you know I produced a 21 minute documentary about Miss Edna Lewis. The film is called "Fried Chicken and Sweet Potato Pie".It is viewable in its entirety on Internet at a Gourmet Magazine website:http://www.gourmet.com/magazine/video/2008/01/Edna
and at a Georgia Public Broadcasting website:http://www.cforty7.com/film/theater?film_test=16
My website, http://bbarash.com/bb_friedchicken.htm has more information about the film and the story of Miss Lewis.
Sincerely,
Bailey Barash

This documentary has been nominated for and won awards. Bailey has done a super job of capturing the times of Miss Edna's life. Her passion and love for Southern food is evident in every frame. Miss Edna is considered to be THE chef who put real, local Southern cooking on the map. Not unlike the Hawaiian Renaissance, her cooking at Cafe Nicholson and Gage and Tollner in NY and her own award winning cookbooks, created an upsurge of Black pride in the culture and the food.

Watch the documentary! I loved seeing Miss Edna and Scott working together, cooking together. Up to this point I've only seen photos of them. Be sure you have some good food at the ready to eat after the viewing because it's going to make you very hungry for some authentic Southern food. Crispy, golden, fried chicken! Luscious caramel cake! Vine-ripened tomatoes! Fortunately, I happened to have made a batch of Shirley Corriher's (yet another of my heroes and from the South, too) Touch of Grace biscuits last night. I heated that up with my son's killer chili!

I wrote to Bailey to thank her profusely for the link.

-foodiewahine