The Porch Sessions Robert St. John Part One

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• published: 08 Apr 2014
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**Like our Facebook Page: https://www.facebook.com/Themsporchsessions **Subscribe to our YouTube Channel: http://www.youtube.com/themsporchsessions Robert St. John has spent more than three decades in the restaurant business. Twenty-five of those years have been as the executive chef, CEO, and owner of the Purple Parrot Café, Crescent City Grill, Mahogany Bar, Tabella, and Branch in Hattiesburg. St. John is a restaurateur, chef, columnist and author. For 12 years he has written a weekly syndicated newspaper column. The Purple Parrot Café, has been named the best fine dining restaurant in Mississippi and just received its fourth Four-Diamond rating from the AAA Travel Guide. Additionally, in 2011, AAA named Purple Parrot Café the second-best fine-dining restaurant in the South (just behind Commander's Palace). St. John has been named the state's top chef three consecutive years and was honored as Mississippi Restaurateur of the Year. St. John served two terms as President of the Mississippi Hospitality & Restaurant Association, and one year as Chairman of the Board of Directors. St. John also served two terms as President of the Hattiesburg Restaurant Association. St. John has served as a director on the boards of the Pat Harrison Waterway District, the Mississippi Museum of Art, the Edwards Street Fellowship Center, the Aldersgate Mission in downtown Hattiesburg, the Mississippi Food Network, the Mississippi Tourism Authority, and the Hattiesburg Convention Commission. He was voted Mississippi's Top 40 Under 40 by The Mississippi Business Journal in 1997 and was part of the Leadership Mississippi Class of 1997. At present St. John is serving his third term as a board member of the Mississippi Arts Commission, where, in 2008 and 2009, he served as Chairman of the Board. He also serves on The Lauren Rogers Museum of Art Advisory Board, and is on the National Chef's Council for the Chef's for Humanity Organization. St. John was named the Pine Belt's Small Business Leader of the Year in 2005 and in the immediate days after Hurricane Katrina was appointed by Governor Haley Barbour to serve on the Commission on Recovery, Rebuilding, and Renewal. St. John is a charter member of the University of Southern Mississippi Eagle Club Circle of Champions, and is the founder of The Purple Parrot Café Scholarship for Hospitality Management students at the University of Southern Mississippi which, for over two decades, has helped students with tuition and expenses while working in the hospitality field. St. John has been featured in USA TODAY and appeared on The Food Network, The Travel Channel, National Public Radio, Martha Stewart Living and the Turner South network. He is the author of nine books, including three collaborations with renowned watercolorist Wyatt Waters. His newest book project was written in Europe while he, his wife and his two children traveled through 17 countries on two continents for six months. The book, An Italian Palate, another collaboration with Waters, will be released October 23rd. In 2009, he founded Extra Table, a nonprofit organization that purchases healthy foods and ships them to soup kitchens and mission pantries throughout Mississippi. His greatest achievement, however, has been convincing his wife to put up with him for 25 years while they raise their two amazing children. "St. John explores the roots of Southern hospitality with witty essays and quietly sophisticated recipes" --Time magazine "The Mississippi restaurateur, food columnist, and chef treats his subjects with humor and a lot of down-home conversation." National Public Radio "If he had accomplished nothing more, St. John deserves kudos for making Hattiesburg, Mississippi a restaurant destination. His Purple Parrot Café updated Southern cooking for a new generation"--Booklist