Still active in her New Orleans restaurant business at 96, Leah Chase has now "left the kitchen," after cooking for presidents. When a housing project was built across from her restaurant, she was encouraged to relocate. Instead she renovated. Her recipes were exalted and famous, her gumbo requiring nine different greens. She was both a culinary and social action force, and she required herself to do something for someone else every day. Her obit starts on page one of the NYT. In the food world, she is known throughout the world as a/the authority on Creole cooking.
