By james art BLACK MOUNTAIN, N.C. — Wearing a cowboy hat and a big smile, Marlo High of Baton Rouge waves to cars passing along Old Highway 70 between Swannanoa and Black Mountain, N.C., twirling a colorful sign that reads: “Taste of Louisiana.”
Nearby, darting around a black food truck, his wife, Cassandra High, chatted with customers. Most of them are residents of nearby towns that were hit by Hurricane Helena in September, leaving varying degrees of destruction in its wake.
In Black Mountain, to the east, life has returned to an almost normal pace. Swannanoa, to the west, was partially swallowed by its namesake river, which washed away entire homes, roads and vehicles, many of which are still scattered, half-buried in mud and dust.
“We wanted to bring them a taste of Louisiana, a little hospitality,” Cassandra High said of the survivors of the historic storm that hit North Carolina with unexpected force on Sept. 27, destroying thousands of homes and businesses and killing at least 99 people in that state alone.
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“We’re used to hurricanes — this was a shock to them,” High said. “So we decided to come and show them some love. Because we believe that food feeds the soul.”
Bringing food shortages to hard-hit areas
High first partnered with chef Paul Farlow, executive chef at the Crowne Plaza Hotel in Baton Rouge, to help people by providing free meals after Hurricane Ida in 2021. Since then, the two have traveled to disaster areas in the Southeast on offer some Louisiana home cooking.
For chef Kichi Johnson, who trained under Farlow, this is the first time he has worked in a disaster area. Just seeing the words “Cajun,” “Creole” or Louisiana in relation to food seems to brighten people’s day, she observed.
“We’ve got the flavor, we’ve got the spice,” Johnson said. “Give them something new to taste.” On the menu: jambalaya, red beans and rice, fried catfish and bread pudding, among other classics.
The responses have been positive, said Farlow, a man of few words but plenty of tricks up his chef’s coat sleeve. When a customer asked him if he could include some vegetarian options, he said no problem and set about writing a shopping list.
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Traveling to disaster areas, Farlow has cooked on behalf of FEMA and the American Red Cross, prepared free meals to be served in church parking lots — including 3,000 meals the group distributed in Asheville shortly after Helen hit — and no food truck currently parked in a CVS parking lot.
“When they don’t need us, we’re here for the community,” the chef said.
A delight for the taste buds
And the audience appreciates it. Lake Lure resident Rodney Hall lived in Denham Springs while working in the oil field several decades ago. Now he regularly drives an hour south to Spartanburg, South Carolina, for some boiled crawfish.
He did it the night before Helen hit, Hall recalled. The storm flooded his storage room, but luckily left his camper intact. Much of Lake Lure, which served as the backdrop for the 1987 film Dirty Dancing, was covered in mud by raging waters that leveled the nearby town of Chimney Rock and washed piles of debris into the lake of the same name.
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Farlow’s cooking is a treat for jaded taste buds, Hall confirms. Picking up a portion of red beans and rice, it’s his second trip to the food truck that day. “I’ll be back,” he said. “It’s delicious.”
Although some of the group’s volunteers will remain in the Asheville area, High said roughly half will relocate to Lansing, N.C., in collaboration with World Central Kitchen, a nonprofit organization that provides food assistance and was founded in response of the 2010 earthquake in Haiti.
Many restaurants in areas affected by the storm have yet to reopen, some struggling with staff shortages as residents remain displaced and much of the area remains under boil warnings, further straining commercial kitchens.
For the group around High and Farlow, the mission is clear: “Somebody needs to be fed, and we’re going to do it,” High said.