Joe Truex cooking at Avoyelles Public Charter School
This story appeared in today’s print edition of the Atlanta Journal-Constitution. It is about a trip I took with my friend, the chef Joe Truex, to his home in Louisiana.
Mansura, Louisiana — Joe Truex parks his Subaru station wagon in front of my house before dawn. An orange U-Haul trailer, glowing in the street lights, tilts oddly behind it. “It’s not sitting right,” Joe worries, squatting by the hitch and giving it a tug. “I guess we’ll find out if it holds,” he adds, laughing.
Joe and his wife, Mihoko Obunai, own the prominent Atlanta restaurant Repast. Because they are near neighbors and have become good friends, I stay clear of appraising or recommending their food. But that morning I pack both hats — writer and friend — for our road trip. We take off on a voyage to his boyhood home in central Louisiana, where his past and future would await. There, Joe will headline the kind of gig that every chef …