I wrote last year about a trip I took with Jamie McAfee, the chef at the Pine Bluff Country Club, to the legendary Dixie Pig in Blytheville. After reading a column about Dixie Pig, McAfee contacted me and said his father once worked at the Blytheville Country Club. McAfee had been told that his father helped Dixie Pig's owner come up with the restaurant's signature blue cheese dressing recipe.
"I haven't been there in more than 50 years," McAfee told me. "Would you take me?"
I contacted Bob Halsell at Dixie Pig and told him McAfee's story. Halsell said: "You know, that rings a bell. I remember my dad saying that a fellow who worked out at the country club helped him with that dressing." When McAfee and Halsell met, it was as if they were long-lost cousins.
At the recent induction ceremony for the Arkansas Food Hall of Fame, McAfee was named Proprietor of the Year. He personifies the type of person who makes the Arkansas food culture so rich--interested not only in preparing good food but also interested in this state, its people and its history; a person looking for local suppliers whenever possible. McAfee is that kind of person, which is why he made that long road trip to Blytheville with me.
McAfee's formative years were spent in McGehee, where his father managed Delta Country Club from the early 1960s until the late 1970s. He began working with his father in the kitchen at a young age. While attending Memphis Culinary Institute, McAfee worked at a Nike distribution center, where he was asked to cook for Nike founder Phil Knight.
"I could have stayed with Nike, but I wanted to get back to Arkansas," McAfee says. "I moved back to McGehee in September 1986 and came to Pine Bluff Country Club in February 2003."
Now, he manages the entire club in addition to serving as its chef. McAfee also cooks during duck season for several of the state's most prestigious hunting clubs.
We're blessed as a state from a culinary standpoint. There are just 3 million residents, but Arkansas punches well above its weight class when it comes to food. I believe the other finalists this year eventually will find their way into the Food Hall of Fame. I serve on the selection committee, and we received 263 nominations for Proprietor of the Year.
This year's finalists include Chester and Laura Huntsman of Crossett, who opened Beech Street Bistro in 2018 after renovating a 100-year-old house given to them by Laura's father. I had dinner there last month and would describe the atmosphere as a mix between a south Louisiana fishing camp and a Mississippi juke joint (there's often live music). The menu has everything from crawfish pie to fried alligator.
Another finalist is Little Rock's Jim Keet, who has had a hand in numerous Arkansas restaurants. The Springfield, Mo., native came to Arkansas in 1975 to run Wendy's franchises. But the real buzz started when Keet and his sons launched multiple locations of Taziki's Mediterranean Cafe along with Petit & Keet, an upscale restaurant in west Little Rock.
The Keet family later took a former Cock of the Walk location on the north side of the Arkansas River and turned it into the highly popular Cypress Social. They're now opening multiple locations of Waldo's Chicken & Beer while also working to transform Little Rock's Breckenridge Village shopping center into a restaurant-centric entertainment complex that will bring brands such as Deluca's of Hot Springs to the capital city.
David Stobaugh of Stoby's in Conway is another finalist. As a kitchen steward at his fraternity at the University of Arkansas in Fayetteville, the Morrilton native picked up the nickname Stoby. It stuck. His food industry experience includes selling ice cream from a three-wheeler at ballparks.
Stoby's has long been a favorite of students, faculty and staff at Conway's three colleges. Stoby's famous cheese dip has been widely distributed since the late 1990s. Stobaugh and his wife Patti added PattiCakes Bakery to the Conway food scene in 2006.
Back down in southeast Arkansas where McAfee works, Chuck Taylor of Taylor's Steakhouse near Dumas is another 2023 finalist. I say "near Dumas" because the restaurant is in an old country store outside of town. Taylor began aging beef as a hobby. His steaks now attract diners from Arkansas, Mississippi and Louisiana.
Taylor is a quiet man, leaving it to his wife Pam to run the front of the house and visit with guests. Charles and Dorothy Taylor opened Taylor's Grocery in 1954 to serve area farmers. Chuck (the son) later opened a liquor store next to his parents' grocery story.
Chuck Taylor told an interviewer a few years ago: "My mother always made barbecue. When grocery sales declined, we branched out and bought equipment to start doing hamburgers, sandwiches and fried fish. It started to grow, so we began taking out the grocery shelves and adding tables and chairs for people to eat."
Taylor let the liquor store's license expire and used that building as part of the restaurant. Dinner service began in October 2012.
The other finalist this year is James Woods of Camden. Woods, who hails from Forrest City, came to Camden in 1984 to manage a Golden Corral. He later noticed a building in a strip shopping center where a catfish restaurant had closed down. He bought the building and opened a new catfish establishment that he called Woods Place.
Woods caters events across the state and purchased in 2001 what had once been International Paper Co.'s supervisors' club on the Ouachita River at Camden. He transformed it into an event facility known as River Woods. The building was constructed in the 1950s. Woods added decks, built an outdoor stage, landscaped the grounds and stocked a pond with catfish, bream and bass.
This was our seventh Food Hall of Fame induction ceremony. We received nominations from all 75 counties. The various categories attracted 1,828 nominations this year. Since the Food Hall of Fame began in 2017, we've received more than 8,900 nominations. It's clear that Arkansans love not only to eat but also to talk about and think about food.
In addition to hundreds of locally owned restaurants, the state boasts dozens of food-themed events. We pick one food-themed event for induction. This year's inductee is the Magnolia Blossom Festival & World Championship Steak Cook-Off. Cooking teams bring their expensive rigs from across the country on the third Saturday in May and set up around the courthouse square in downtown Magnolia.
The festival has been featured nationally on the Food Network. I'm fortunate enough to have been selected as a judge for this year's event.
The other finalists are the Mayhaw Festival at El Dorado and the Slovak Oyster Supper in the small farming community of Slovak in southern Prairie County.
The Mayhaw Festival is held the first Saturday in May. It features music, craft vendors, a car and bike show, children's activities and a macaroni and cheese cook-off. There's plenty of homemade mayhaw jelly (mayhaw grows wild in south Arkansas) for sale each year.
The Slovak Oyster Supper is held late each January in the parish hall of the Church of Saints Cyril and Methodius, who are known as the apostles of the Slavs. Members of the Knights of Columbus bring the oysters (served fried and raw) from the Gulf Coast. Along with the annual Gillett Coon Supper earlier each January, the Slovak Oyster Supper is considered a must-attend event for Arkansas politicians.
Slovak was established in 1894. Fraternal and nationalistic organizations such as the National Slovak Society translated ads promoting areas for farming in Arkansas. The Slovak Colonization Co. was organized in Pittsburgh by Peter Rovnianek. The company bought 3,000 acres on the Arkansas Grand Prairie and set aside 160 acres in the center of the tract for homes, the church and a school.
Rex Nelson is a senior editor at the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette.