NEW ORLEANS -- Willie Mae Seaton's Scotch House in the Treme District of New Orleans has been heralded as having the best fried chicken in the country. I won't argue. I haven't sampled all the fried chicken in the country yet.

Certainly, it has one of the best stories. Owned by 92-year-old Willie Mae Seaton, it opened as a bar in 1957. The house drink was scotch and milk.

Willie Mae's was nearly wiped out by Hurricane Katrina and the subsequent devastation, flooding the modest corner restaurant with 4 feet of water.

Due to the efforts of the Southern Foodways Alliance, many volunteers, and a quartet of Johns -- John T. Edge, and chefs John Folse (Lafitte's Landing, Donaldsonville, La.), John Currance (City Grocery, Oxford, Miss.), and John Besh (Restaurant August and Luke, New Orleans) -- the restaurant was stripped to its rafters and rebuilt. My husband, David Lesako, spent a dusty weekend there in February '06 and he's proud to say he tore the roof off.

Willie Mae's now is open but only in the afternoon. The crowd consists mostly of tourists and a few returning locals. Some of the politicians who used to be regulars stop by, but not as often. That's because the neighborhood it served is still in recovery. Willie Mae, who always hoped she'd get back behind her stove, is taking life a little easier these days.

Instead, her petite great-granddaughter, Kerry Seaton, 28, has donned a chef's jacket and pulled a black beret over her curls. She's manning the fryer and keeping tradition alive.

She was about to take the LSATs for law school, when she got the call to come home and run the restaurant, which she calls "a good decision."

I was in New Orleans mid-April to attend the International Association of Culinary Professionals' annual convention. On my short list of must-eats was fried chicken at Willie Mae's and dinner at Cochon and Luke. A group of us organized a Willie Mae run and flagged down an SUV cab for the trip. Lots of food folks were making the same pilgrimage.

Noisy, exhausted, and giddy from Tabasco bloody Marys with pickled okra garnishes, our group sped along. We informed our affable, yet hard-to-understand, Haitian driver, Lucien, that we were buying him lunch. I'm not sure the thought delighted him.

Willie Mae's is off the beaten track and most likely, you won't be able to flag a cab once there, so keeping our cabbie with us seemed the best way insure a ride back.

We'd called ahead and Kerry was expecting us. There were plenty of customers at rustic tables in the two-room restaurant talking and eating chicken. We convinced our cabbie to go in and paid him for the first leg of the trip, so there was no confusion.

We asked for three or four orders of fried chicken to share plus sides: red beans and rice, green beans and rice, butter beans and rice for Lucien. Kerry sent out small dishes of vinegary, succulent collard greens, long-stewed and studded with big pieces of ham.

About the chicken: Seasoned to the bone, crusty yet tender, spicy, addictive, were some of my thoughts as I ate my second piece. Give me more, I thought as I ordered another plate for the table. The difference is the batter coating instead of a flour dip, which is more common in Southern fried chicken. But as New Orleanians kept reminding us, New Orleans is not the South. It's a place unto itself.

The recipe? Kerry Seaton will never tell.

Lucien joined us in our wonderful time. He only ate one piece of fried chicken, confessing that his wife makes him a baked chicken that he prefers. He told the two nutritionists at our table who'd been scarfing down fried chicken that baked is healthier. He polished off his butter beans and rice.

We piled back into the cab, making plans for naps or a bit of shopping before the evening's events. Lucien refused a fare for the home stretch, and tried to hand back the bills we proffered as tips. Most of us were leaving the next day so we gave him an airport pick-up schedule to keep him busy and provide income. I was the first to be collected. He offered to take my friend and me for coffee. We thanked him but declined, in French.

Merci bien, Lucien. You made New Orleans an even more memorable place. The recipe below is for you.

PG TESTED

I developed this chicken dish for Lucien, our Haitian cab driver in New Orleans. He joined us at the table at Willie Mae's Scotch House but only ate one piece of fried chicken, telling us he preferred his chicken baked. Ti Malice is a Haitian sauce, sort of a chunky, spicy, onion salsa, delicious with this chicken and rice.

8 bone-in chicken drumsticks or thighs, or 4 bone-in breasts, cut in half with kitchen shears, or a combination, skinned if you like (2 to 2 1/2 pounds)

• 1/3 cup orange juice
• 2 tablespoons olive oil
• 3 garlic cloves, minced
• 11/2 teaspoons ground cumin
• 1/2 teaspoon dried thyme
• 3/4 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper
• 1/2 teaspoon kosher salt

Preheat oven to 400 degrees. Put chicken in roasting pan.

In small bowl, mix orange juice, oil, garlic, cumin, thyme, pepper, and salt. Pour over chicken, coating both sides.

Bake about 1 hour, turning chicken and spooning pan juices over, until chicken is browned and no longer pink in thickest part. If pan gets dry or burns in spots, stir in a little water.

Serve with pan juices, and if you like, Sauce Ti Malice, recipe at right.

Makes 4 servings

-- Miriam Rubin

PG TESTED

• 1 large white onion, coarsely chopped (about 2 cups)
• 1/4 cup plus 2 tablespoons fresh lime juice
• 3 tablespoons olive oil
• 2 jalapeno or serrano peppers, stemmed, seeded, if desired, and minced (see note)
• 2 garlic cloves, minced
• Pinch kosher salt (optional)

Stir all ingredients in heavy, nonreactive medium saucepan over medium heat. Bring to boil. Reduce heat to low, cover and simmer 5 minutes, until onions are crisp-tender. Let stand off heat 20 minutes, transfer to bowl, cover and refrigerate at least 1 hour before serving. Keeps 3 or 4 days.

Makes 1 1/2 cups.

-- Adapted from 1stHolistic.com

Note: To test the spiciness of the chiles, touch a tiny bit to your tongue. My jalapeno peppers were rather spicy, which is unusual, so I removed the seeds and ribs from one. Otherwise I would have left the seeds in. If you like HOT, use 1 to 2 teaspoons minced, seeded habanero chiles. Wear gloves when handling and chopping any chiles and keep the kitchen fan on. And don't rub your eyes.