SFA Staff Members
John T Edge is the author or editor of more than ten books, including the foodways volume of the New Encyclopedia of Southern Culture, Cornbread Nation: the Best of Southern Food Writing, and Southern Belly: The Ultimate Food Lover’s Companion to the South. He also writes for a range of different publications, including the New York Times. His son, Jess, won't eat souse or trotters. Neither will his wife, Blair Hobbs, a poet, teacher, and painter. This situation frustrates Edge and he sees no resolution forthcoming.
Director | johnt@olemiss.edu
Mary Beth Lasseter is a South Georgia native. She has a B.A. from the University of Notre Dame, and she wrote a thesis on Elvis for her Southern Studies M.A. from the University of Mississippi. Work for her Ole Miss M.B.A. was not nearly so much fun, though it has proven useful as she crunches numbers, answers e-mails, and plans events for the SFA. Favorite foods include fried pimiento cheese, Moon Pies, and pig. She resides in Vicksburg, Mississippi, with her engineer husband, Ned, their son David, and their Viking cookware.
Associate Director | marybeth@olemiss.edu
Amy C. Evans is the SFA’s oral historian. She has stood in pig lots in Cajun Country, behind bars in Louisville (cocktail bars, that is), and on oyster skiffs in the Apalachicola Bay to collect the stories behind the food. When she’s not traveling, Amy makes paintings in her Oxford studio, which sits on the fourteen-acre homestead she shares with her daughter, Sofia. Amy appreciates a good meringue and can never eat too many oysters.
Oral Historian | acevans@olemiss.edu
Melissa Booth Hall grew up in Middlesboro, Kentucky just a few hundred yards from the Cumberland Gap. Her culinary education began at age four when she was allowed to stand on a chair in front of a gas stove and make fried pies. She has Centre College and Salmon P. Chase College of Law to thank for her everything else education. A lawyer by training, she recently figured out a way to turn her passion for food into a paying job. She lives in Oxford with her law professor husband, Matthew; her Lego-building sons, Robert and Daniel; and her car-chasing, mole-digging, cat-hating dog, Mr. Frodo. She once made 1,000 deviled eggs.
Events Maven | sfaevents@olemiss.edu
Julie Pickett is a South Carolina girl. She fell in love with her historian husband, Otis, watching Clemson football and visiting Upstate meat-and-threes. Armed with a B.S. in marketing from Clemson, she worked at Washington University in St. Louis and a marketing firm in Charleston before settling down in Oxford. Her daughter, Martha Jane, adores fried shrimp and catfish.
SFA Administrator | sfadesk@olemiss.edu
