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Cookhouse Special Hattiesburg’s Chef Robert St. John Helps Us Through Southern Parties And at Just the Season When We Need Him Most by Kathy Root Pitts Robert St. John is the Chief Executive Chef of the Purple Parrot Cafe, the Crescent City Grill, and the Mahogany Bar in Hattiesburg and Meridian, Mississippi has written a new book entitled Deep South Parties: Or How to Survive the Southern Cocktail Hour without a Box of French Onion Soup Mix, a Block of Processed Cheese, or a Cocktail Weenie. Robert St. John breathes life into cliché party fare. Using his knowledge of seasonal Southern cuisine, St. John artfully combines Creole flavors from New Orleans, fresh seafood from the Gulf of Mexico, and farm-raised vegetables and produce from his own Deep South. Situated in Hattiesburg, Mississippi, Robert St. John is close to everything nice—that is—all of the best elements fine Southern cooking. What better medium for establishing oneself as a practicing Southerner than through the medium of food, and what better stage than a party. Robert St. John draws from his memories of favorite meals that he enjoyed as a child, and then adapts them to his own preferred cooking techniques and palate of flavors. Among St. John’s favorite recipes in his new cookbook are: Smoked Crabmeat, Black-Eyed Pea Dip, Yellowfin Tuna Tartare with Avocado Relish and Wonton Chips, Fried Green Tomatoes with Shrimp Remoulade, and Fig Butter. Check out St. John’s assortment of punch recipes. I never knew that Southern Punch was a source of theological disagreement, but it just so happens that St. John draws deep denominational lines in the contents of his ladle. Yet, not only are his concoctions tasty, but he seems to try hard to be fair to all groups. St. John’s parties sound inspired; he would cast away argument and share a loving cup (see sample recipes at right). Deep South Parties: Or How to survive the Southern Cocktail Hour without a Box of French Onion Soup Mix, a Block of Processed Cheese, or a Cocktail Weenie Published by Hyperion Books Price $19.95/Hardcover ISBN: 1-4013-0840-6 From the “Wrath of Grapes” chapter, these three punch recipes should satisfy all tastes. Baptist Punch 2 cups cranberry juice cocktail 2 cups apple cider 1 cup pineapple juice 1 cup orange juice 1/4 cup lemon juice, freshly squeezed 2 qts ginger ale Combine the first five ingredients and mix well. Chill. Just before serving, add the ginger ale. Yield: 28 4-oz servings Episcopalian Punch 1 fifth bourbon, 100 proof 1 fifth brandy 1 fifth sherry 1 fifth sparkling red wine juice of 12 fresh lemons 1 fifth soda water Combine all the ingredients except the soda water. Chill. Add soda just before serving. Yield: 34 4-oz servings Presbyterian Punch This punch can be made in advance and frozen. Ice is not needed, as the partially thawed punch base will keep the ginger ale cool. 8 6-oz cans lemonade 3 qts water 1 46-oz can unsweetened pineapple juice 3 qts ginger ale Mix juices and freeze in 3 half-gallon milk cartons. Thaw 3–4 hours, and add ginger ale. Add 1 chilled bottle ginger ale to each 1/2 gallon of base. Yield: 70 4-oz servings Sound Mind & Sound Body Dr. Arthur Guyton's Legacy by Kathy Root Pitts. Arthur Guyton, born in Oxford, Mississippi on September 8, 1919, was one of the great medical minds of the Twentieth Century. Dr. Guyton felt that education was best when the student was given the chance to question and experience learning on his or her own as a dynamic and exploratory process. This was his approach to academics as a teacher at the University Medical Center (UMC). At a young age, Arthur had opportunities to explore his early interests in electricity, carpentry, mechanics, and athletics at home. He enjoyed tennis, track, football. With his neighbor and friend, William Faulkner, Guyton played chess, sailed on Sardis Lake in a boat that Guyton constructed, and flew planes. While studying at the Oxford Campus of the University of Mississippi, Guyton learned the value of combining sciences ? the principles of one to inform another. He recognized patterns. When he continued his studies at Harvard Medical School, he missed that freedom of academic exploration that he had at the University of Mississippi, but he did enjoyed working in the machine shop at Harvard, and it was while in Boston that he came up with his prototype of the first commercial sensor for arterial pressure suction tube used in intestinal surgery. He was gifted in the area of electro-chemistry. In 1943, Guyton married Ruth Waigle from New Haven, Connecticut. Arthur and Ruth would have ten children. When asked why so many children, Ruth good-humoredly stated, ?The incredible truth is, simply, that we happen to like children. ? (Inventing 74) During World War II, Arthur enlisted into the Navy and served at Bethesda Naval Hospital in Massachusetts in the Department of Surgery, and then at Camp Detrick, Maryland in the Bacterial Warfare Department. There, he invented apparatii for studying the behavior and air-dispersal of bacteria, toxins, and viruses. After military service, and back in Boston, Arthur and Ruth settled into a home with their first baby, David. Dr. Guyton planned to specialize in cardiac surgery, but he contracted polio and suffered partial paralysis. With undaunted spirit, he directed his creativity to inventing the electric wheelchair, walking leg braces, hoists, and other devices for the use people with disabilities. He declined monetary compensation for these, as he would not benefit from the suffering of others. In 1947, Dr. Guyton and family returned to Oxford as Head of Physiology at The University of Mississippi. There, his researches into his primary passion, physiology, led to the first federal grants given to the University of Mississippi Medical School in 1968. More federal research funds followed. Arthur Guyton was rapidly receiving country-wide recognition. The University of Mississippi expanded their medical school into a four-year program and moved it to Jackson in 1955. Jackson would become the Guyton ?s home, and true to form, Arthur Guyton built his own house (see photo on page 10). While at UMC, Dr. Guyton used his concepts of complementary sciences to determine the relationship between the kidneys and the circulatory system, the Theory of Infinite Gain: ?Ott was able to prove the true relationship between blood, veins, heart, and kidneys, and that kidneys are the true regulators of long-term blood pressure control....Arthur C. Guyton [is considered] to be the Father of Modern Cardiovascular Physiology. ? (Inventing Ott 75). Dr. Arthur Guyton wrote approximately 40 books and 600 papers for medical literature, but his most renowned work, Textbook of Medical Physiology, in 1956, is the ?best selling medical book of all time ? (Inventing 78). Unlike other medical volumes that take many medical scholars and several years to compose, Dr. Guyton wrote his text on his own inside of one year, drawing from the notes that he used to teach his classes. The most recent editions of Textbook of Medical Physiology were coauthored by Guyton ?s honored and respected former student, Dr. John Hall. Dr. Hall admitted that Arthur Guyton ?s way of understanding physiology is difficult, but once mastered, the doctor has a deeper understanding of the body ?s processes. (Guyton 86). Guyton did not lecture his students so much as showing them ?how to think. ? In a ceremony at the Mississippi Trade Mart a few weeks before his retirement in 1989, Arthur Guyton was honored for his brilliant career with the naming of ?Arthur Guyton Day ?: August 25th. Mississippi ?s Congress had made this official the previous March. Tragically, on April 30, 2003, Arthur Guyton and his wife, Ruth were in a car accident not far from their Jackson home. They were delivered to the University Medical Center and died within a few days of each other. Still, the Guytons ? support of each other, their love of family, their strength, and Dr. Guyton ?s gifts to the field of medicine, will certainly be remembered”