Good Food Makes People Happy

"My love of Southern cooking comes from my mother who was born in Tennessee," says chef/owner Joe Brown of Melange Cafe in Cherry Hill, NJ. The youngest of ten children, Joe learned to cook early at his mother's side. "When she cooked for us, it was like she knew exactly what we needed, and she delivered in her food. I still smell my mother's yeast rolls and cornbread. My brothers and I would wake up in the middle of the night and sneak downstairs to see if there was just one more piece left. (Keep in mind that I was the youngest of ten kids, so leftovers were a precious commodity!) Often I was too late, and someone else had already beaten me to the punch. The next morning we'd all laugh about who got the goods. No one would confess, but you could always tell who the lucky kid was - the one with crumbs in the bed." This youthful love of cooking led him on a self-propelled culinary adventure.