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MAKES 6 SERVINGS

North and South Carolina both have coastal towns named Beaufort. Tar Heels pronounce it BEAU-fort the French way, but in South Carolina it’s BU-fort. For beauty and historical significance, South Carolina’s Beaufort wins hands down. It’s a mini Charleston with street after street of magnificent antebellum homes. Suzanne Williamson, whom More dispatched me to profile one Christmas, lives in one of them with her husband, Peter Pollak. No one loves to entertain more than Suzanne and no one does it with greater style and grace. Her secret? Check out Entertaining for Dummies, which she coauthored with Linda Smith. For More’s Christmas feature, Suzanne served this quail jambalaya in her candlelit ballroom. Among the guests was novelist Pat Conroy, who came early to kibitz in the kitchen with Suzanne; at the time, she was developing recipes for The Pat Conroy Cookbook (2004). Note: You can substitute three halved Cornish hens for the quail, but they must be small—no more than a pound and a half apiece.

3 tablespoons olive oil

Twelve 4-ounce quail, cleaned, dressed, and split lengthwise (see Note above)

¼ teaspoon salt

¼ teaspoon ground hot red pepper (cayenne)

2 medium yellow onions, moderately finely chopped

1 large red bell pepper, cored, seeded, and moderately finely chopped

1 large green bell pepper, cored, seeded, and moderately finely chopped

4 large garlic cloves, minced

3 cups boiling chicken broth

1½ cups converted rice

2 large whole bay leaves

1 pound fully cooked chorizo or Spanish-style sausage, thinly sliced

¾ cup canned plum tomatoes, drained and finely chopped

1. Preheat the oven to 375° F. Lightly coat a large, shallow roasting pan (preferably one attractive enough to appear at the dining table) with nonstick cooking spray and set aside.

2. Heat half the olive oil in a large, heavy skillet over moderately high heat, add half the quail, and brown 2 minutes on each side; transfer to the roasting pan. Brown the remaining quail in the remaining oil the same way and add to the pan. Sprinkle the birds with the salt and cayenne pepper and roast uncovered on the middle oven shelf for 15 minutes.

3. Meanwhile, sauté the onions, red and green bell peppers, and garlic in the skillet drippings, stirring often, for about 5 minutes or until limp. Add 1 cup of the hot broth and cook 1 to 2 minutes, scraping up any browned bits on the skillet bottom.

4. Remove the birds from the oven, transfer to a large tray, and set aside. Pour the skillet mixture into the roasting pan, add the rice and remaining hot broth, and tuck in the bay leaves.

5. Cover snugly with foil, slide onto the middle oven rack, and bake for 15 minutes or until the rice is al dente. Remove the foil cover, discard the bay leaves, and stir well.

6. Fold the chorizo and tomatoes into the rice mixture, then arrange the quail on top, skin sides up. Cover with the foil and bake for 15 minutes or until the rice is tender and the quail are done.

7. Serve at table right from the roasting pan. Or, if you prefer, divide the jambalaya among six heated dinner plates.

* * *

CATFISH

The catfish is a plenty good enough fish for anyone.

—Mark Twain

When I was a little girl, we’d pile into the family Ford on Sunday afternoons and jounce along unpaved back roads raising clouds of red dust. We’d tunnel through thickets of pine, cross fields of broomstraw, and clatter over wooden bridges, most of them one-lane and some of them covered.

I liked the bridges best because there were always people down below fishing in water as red as iron rust—men, women, children, blacks, whites. Most wore overalls and poke bonnets or straw hats. And most used homemade poles made of bamboo.

“They’re after catfish,” my mother explained, adding that she didn’t like them because they tasted like mud (around here they’re still called “mudcats”). Back then you had to catch your own catfish, befriend someone who did, or do without.

Fast-forward fifty years. The other night at Crook’s Corner in Chapel Hill I feasted on catfish fingers as delicate