For the Love of Southern Cooking: Our Family’s Culinary Journey
Mary and Fred Perdue’s love of cooking and great tasting food started long ago with humble beginnings. Mary’s culinary love affair began in Johnsville, Arkansas in the kitchen of her mother, Miss Minnie.
In Minnie’s kitchen, every meal was made from scratch. Every vegetable was grown in the family garden. And every egg came from the family’s hens. Miss Minnie believed the home-grown freshness added to the flavor of the food.
Fred Perdue’s beginnings in Birmingham, Alabama were quite similar. Fred’s mother, Miss Marguerite, displayed her culinary flair at all family celebrations and gatherings. Utilizing the cooking skills handed down from his mother, Fred worked at prominent restaurants in Alabama and California after college.
Though Fred and Mary enjoyed successful careers at the Disney Corporation, the urge to cook, and to share happiness, run in this family. So, along with Mary’s brother, Willie Trotter, the family soon found themselves catering events on weekends and eventually opening a restaurant in Los Angeles, called
“Perdue’s Q.”
After enjoying much success in Los Angeles, Mary and Fred are happy to call Pasadena home with the move of “Perdue’s Q”.
The Tradition Continues
In addition to all of the desserts and many of the sides coming from the recipes of Miss Marguerite and Miss Minnie, the family’s natural cooking gifts continue in their son, Derek James. Derek, whose modern perspective, Cordon Bleu training and sophisticated palate has quickly earned him a reputation as one of Los Angeles’ premier chefs for high-end catering.
Under Derek’s leadership, Perdue’s Fine Catering has become the talk of the town in Pasadena social circles.
Mary, Fred, Willie and Derek welcome you to their home where there is a little bit of love, Johnsville and Birmingham in every succulent bite…Enjoy!