Bio
Nathalie Dupree is the author of ten cookbooks, eight of which are hard backs, selling over half a million copies, and host of three hundred television shows, which have aired on PBS, The Learning Channel and The Food Network for over fifteen years.
Nathalie, as she is known to her fans, has won innumerable awards for her work, including two James Beard Awards. She is most famous for her approachability and understanding of Southern cooking, having started the New Southern Cooking movement now found in many restaurants throughout the South.
She has been Chef of three restaurants, one in Majorca, Spain, one in Social Circle, Georgia, and one in Richmond, Virginia. She was the Director of Rich’s Cooking School, a full participation cooking school in Atlanta, and stopped counting at 10,000 students. Numerous students of hers now own restaurants, catering or other food businesses, and have written their own cookbooks.
Married to author Jack Bass, she lives in Charleston, South Carolina.
This morning I saw Carolina Gold harvested, the dew still on the ground. Some people want gold metal, I wanted to see the Gold of novels and books, the heart of the culture of the state of South Carolina for centuries. One look at the field of rice makes clear the reason for the name,Carolina Gold. The most coveted and sought after rice of those centuries is golden, riding on a sea of tall green stalks. The rice’s gold signifies it is the right time to start to dry the rice. The stalks are removed with a hook (a scythe) leaving a foot or so of stubble that will be turned back into the ground later. The sheaths of rice are then spread on top of the stubble to dry before being collected. At one time it would have been harvested starting at four in the morning, to beat the heat of the day, after a cold breakfast. 
August was the usual time in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, according to the meticulous records the planters kept – detailing dialing weather and rainfall, among other things. Thomas Jefferson loved this rice, his favorite among 98 varieties he collected. (Stories abound about people coming up to him and slipping rice into his pockets. Finally the planters had to tell him to stop sending new varieties – they liked what they had.) The fields have been flooded with fresh water and drained three times. Now it is up to the sun. At Middleton, historically dressed workers scythe the tall grasses that were formerly worked by slaves. 
Charleston, once the richest city in America, had a population that was more slaves than whites. When South Carolina was at its richest, the rice most plentiful, the economy collapsed with the aftermath of the civil war. Makes me think about the adage about riding high before a fall. Feels similar to the economy’s collapse last year.