Acknowledgments

There are many people who have helped make this cookbook a reality. We particularly want to thank Patsy Joiner, who has spent long hours editing our recipes, correcting our spelling and grammar, and assisting us in getting the information to our publisher on time in the acceptable format.

We want to thank our neighbor Sophia DeMoss, who has been one of our dearest friends for almost thirty years. Sophia has assisted in testing dozens of the recipes and has made comments on each recipe. Special thanks to Dominick Stella and Chip Edgerly (our son) at the Blue Willow Inn Restaurant for their assistance in testing recipes. Thank you also goes to Peggy Hawkins, the general manager of Magnolia Hall (Blue Willow Inn’s catering and special events facility), for her assistance in testing appetizers and serving them to our guests for customer comments. We thank Denise Cardella and Mae Morrow at Journey’s End Restaurant, our facility in Loganville, Georgia, for their time spent testing recipes and their comments. Without friends and staff assisting us in testing recipes, this book would have taken many more months to complete.

Thanks go to Michael and Jane Stern, cookbook authors and food columnists, for their work on Louis and Billie Van Dyke’s Blue Willow Inn Cookbook, which was published in 2002, and for all we have learned from them. They introduced us to the publisher, Rutledge Hill Press, who is now our publisher. We appreciate the faith and support Rutledge Hill has placed in us by publishing The Blue Willow Inn Bible of Southern Cooking.

A special appreciation goes to the great cooks from all over the South who sent us their favorite family recipes. These great cooks responded to a recipe contest as we were seeking the best of the South. Winners were chosen in each category of the book as well as a first place winner. The winning recipes and many more great family recipes are included throughout the book.

We are especially indebted to the gracious kindness of First Ladies from all over the South who sent us the governor’s and their family’s favorite recipe, and a special thanks to the governor of Louisiana for her family recipe.

A very special thanks goes to the people who have worked for us over the years. We have learned a great deal from them. They have helped us refine recipes and introduced us to new recipes that we have added to our menu at the Blue Willow Inn.

We would most certainly be remiss if we did not thank our customers. Some of them have been brutally frank in their critiques of our cooking, but often their suggestions have made us a better restaurant. We have some of the best customers a restaurant could possibly have, and we would not trade them for any others.

Most importantly, we want to thank our Heavenly Father, Jesus Christ, and the Holy Spirit for the blessings and the strength They have given us. We thank Them for Their past and future blessings.

— LOUIS AND BILLIE VAN DYKE