From the Golden Gate Bridge to the lights of Broadway with a quick stop in Minneapolis, Regina Trosclair Charboneau has cooked from one side of the United States to other. But when the opportunity came along to return to her hometown it seemed to be the perfect time to bring her family back to where she had enjoyed growing up.

&uot;There is a sense of d\u00E9j&192; vu for me to take my children to Cathedral School every morning,&uot; said Charboneau. &uot;I was raised attending Cathedral and graduated from there in 1972.&uot; She has two sons, Jean-Luc, 9, and Martin, 7.

&uot;After graduation I ended up in Alaska as a cook at a construction camp. I think my mother was a little worried about me being up there, but two very good things came from it. I was able to save money and attend La Varenne in Paris and I met my husband, Douglas.&uot;

After attending La Varenne and honing her culinary skills, Charboneau returned to Alaska as the executive chef at the Tower Club. During this time she also opened her first restaurant, Regina’s, in Anchorage.

&uot;My husband does consulting for large companies that are troubled or having financial problems,&uot; Charboneau. &uot;When we had the opportunity to move to San Francisco it seemed like perfect timing. I opened a new Regina’s in the Regis Hotel. It was across from a theater and close to the Four Seasons Hotel.&uot;

Around the same time the Charboneaus also had opened a Regina’s in the wine country and another restaurant in San Francisco named Chi Chi Beignet. With two small children, the Charboneau’s life was full. When the Regis hotel sold to new owners Regina decided it was time to make some changes. She sold Regina’s in Sonoma and the Regina’s in San Francisco.

During this same time she was talking with a business partner about opening something in a basement space they had found.

&uot;We opened Chi Chi Beignet as a small late night dinner club, but I was interested in a new concept. Something casual, I guess I was missing something from my Southern roots,&uot; Charboneau said. And from this came the first Biscuits and Blues restaurant.

&uot;Actually, it is a wonderful blues club that serves great food. All we serve there is fried chicken, catfish and biscuits. It is very casual and even today it continues to be a success.&uot;

By this time with a 2-year-old and a 4-year-old, Regina and her husband were headed to live in Minneapolis.

&uot;We leased Chi Chi Beignet, found a manager for Biscuits and Blues and packed our bags. Also, during this time I worked with my brother Peter Trosclair on his dream to open a restaurant in Natchez,&uot; said Charboneau. &uot;He took the Biscuits and Blues concept, tweaked it a little and now he has a successful restaurant of his own.&uot;

While in Minneapolis Charboneau became the executive chef at a 23 room inn.

&uot;The Nicollette Island Inn was incredible,&uot; said Charboneau. &uot;It was on an island in the middle of the Mississippi river. My main goal there was to create an identity for their cuisine, and we soon developed a heartland cuisine with a reverence for the changing seasons.&uot;

But her Natchez roots would soon come calling with an offer that would eventually prove to be irresistible. Sitting in her dining room one evening were Bob Cannon, Mayor Larry L. &uot;Butch&uot; Brown and Ron and Lani Riches (the owners of historic Monmouth).

&uot;They were there to meet with a company about coming to Natchez. We all visited and talked about the possibility of me coming home and cooking there,&uot; Charboneau said. &uot;So that is when the seed was planted.&uot;

During this time her husband had a consulting job in New York. Knowing that the job would be for about a year the Charboneau’s decided to move their family to New York.

&uot;This was a wonderful time for our family. I became a full-time mom, the boys fell right into being New Yorkers. They were attending a Catholic school about three blocks from our apartment,&uot; Charboneau said. &uot;I would walk them to school in the mornings.&uot;

Her favorite day of the week soon became Tuesday, the day of her weekly dinner party.

&uot;I would do my grocery shopping on Mondays and then I would cook all day on Tuesday,&uot; Charboneau said. &uot;I had only one rule, you had to call on Tuesday morning and let me know if you were coming. This way I could have some idea of how many to expect. Some nights we would have guests from Natchez and New York, sometimes just friends of ours and very often actors. I kept a diary of all my menus and dish combinations.&uot;

She knew her husband’s job in New York was coming to an end and she began to think of home. During this time her father, J.P. Trosclair of Natchez, passed away and Regina began to feel the pull even stronger.

&uot;I remembered the conversation I had in Minneapolis with the Riches and we had been in touch since then,&uot; Charboneau said. &uot;I felt very comfortable coming on board at Monmouth. This is a four-diamond property and a lot of this can be attributed to the Riches. They treat their staff with real respect and caring, and this becomes evident in the way the staff conducts themselves. I’m here to help them do some fine-tuning and work on obtaining their fifth diamond.

&uot;We have Roland Parny as our executive chef and Juanita Love Carter and Lanny Brasher as chefs. Their combined efforts have resulted in fabulous southern food with a French influence. We are also concentrating on local ingredients. With the restaurant open seven nights a week for registered guests and the public we have to stay on our toes and keep our service at a high level.&uot;

But not forgotten was her food diary from New York. The many recipes and menus that revolved around the seasons were just waiting to be compiled into a usable volume.

&uot;The cookbook will be ready for release this fall. It is designed around seasonal menus,&uot; Charboneau. &uot;This is so that the cook will be using ingredients that are at their peak.&uot;

Another unique feature of the new cookbook are its photographs. Many publishers dislike color photographs because of their expense but Charboneau easily overcame that obstacle by taking the photographs herself.

&uot;My husband was a great help with this book,&uot; laughed Charboneau. &uot;He came up with the idea of putting blank pages in for the home cook to make notes on and he helped me with the design and layout. Actually he is my editor, technical advisor, support system and my best friend. After all how many men would move to Mississippi knowing they will be spending a lot of time in airplanes to get to their workplaces?&uot;

Charboneau’s new cookbook is titled &uot;A Collection of Seasonal Menus with Recipes from Regina’s Kitchen.&uot; Divided into four sections by the seasons this book is filled with special recipes from the Charboneau kitchen. All the recipes and menus have been served at herhome and many are traditional favorites. With its release planned for the first of September, here is a peek at this new book that the rest of the country will see on the Today Show in late August.

Sunday Chicken Dinner

Vegetable Slaw with Green Goddess Dressing

Dressing ingredients

1 clove of garlic

1/2 teaspoon of salt

1/2 teaspoon of white pepper

1/2 teaspoon of dry mustard

2 tablespoons of anchovy paste

3 tablespoons of tarragon vinegar

1/3 cup of green onions

1/3 cup parsley tops

1 cup mayonnaise

1/2 cup sour cream

Slaw ingredients

2 cups broccoli slaw

2 cups purple cabbage slaw

2 each sweet red peppers

In blender put garlic, salt, white pepper, dry mustard, anchovy paste, tarragon vinegar and blend. Add green onions, parsley tops and continue to blend. Add mayonnaise and sour cream and blend until you have a fairly smooth dressing. This makes more dressing than you need but it keeps for a few days and is wonderful on sliced tomatoes or any green salad.

Julienne the red peppers. In a large salad bowl mix the broccoli slaw, cabbage and peppers. Add 1/4 cup of the dressing at a time until you have the desired consistency. (Regina recommends 1 cup) You can find the Broccoli slaw and pre-shredded red cabbage near the packaged lettuces in the grocery store or you can shred your own in your food processor.

Baked Red Potato Salad

2 pounds small new red potatoes

1 teaspoon salt

1/2 teaspoon garlic powder

1/2 teaspoon white pepper

3 tablespoons grain mustard

1 cup heavy cream

1/2 bunch green onions

Spray a 2 quart baking dish with nonstick spray. Thinly slice potatoes and layer in baking dish. Season with salt, garlic powder and pepper. In a small bowl mix the mustard cream, blend well with a wire whisk. Dice the green onions and add to the mustard and cream. Pour over sliced potatoes.

Cover with foil and bake at 375 degrees for one hour. Then uncover and bake for 10-15 minutes more. Test with a fork to make sure they are tender to the touch.

Southern Fried Chicken

16 pieces of chicken

4 teaspoons salt

2 teaspoons garlic powder

1 teaspoon black pepper

1/4 teaspoon cayenne pepper

3 cups self rising flour

1 quart vegetable oil

Rinse chicken in cold water. Do not dry. In a small bowl mis salt, garlic powder and peppers to make you seasoning salt. Take two tablespoons of salt mixture and season the chicken. Toss well to distribute the seasoning. Cover with plastic wrap and place in refrigerator at least three hours before frying. Overnight is even better.

Add the remaining seasoning mixture to the three cups of self rising flour. Pour the oil into an electric skillet or a cast iron skillet. Heat to 350 degrees. The oil should fill the skillet half way. Take each piece of chicken and coat very well with seasoned flour. Add chicken to the hot oil. You should have an inch space in between each piece as you are frying. Turn pieces to brown evenly. Use a meat thermometer to check for doneness. It is the best way because of the difference in weight of each piece. They will all require different cooking times. The temperature should register 140 degrees on you thermometer. Drain on paper bag or paper towels to remove excess oil. Serve hot or room temperature.

White Corn Sticks and Honey

Butter

Corn Stick ingredients

1 2/3 cups self rising white corn

meal

1/3 cup self rising flour

4 tablespoons margarine, melted

1 1/2 cups buttermilk

1 egg, beaten

Honey Butter ingredients

1/4 pound soft butter

2 tablespoons honey

Preheat oven to 375 degrees. Pre-heat oiled cast iron corn stick pan or a 9-inch cast iron skillet. In a mixing bowl mix together the corn meal and flour. Add the margarine, buttermilk and egg. Stir until you have smooth batter. Pour into heated pan and bake for 12 minutes. While these are baking mix the butter and honey together. Serve the corn sticks right out of the oven with the honey butter.

Charboneau paired these dishes with Mustard Greens with Pepper Vinegar and a Rhubarb Apple Crisp.Lure of hometown proves to strong for this chef and cookbook author