Southern Cooks of the Week ...

Both photos from the Don Jackson Collection at the LLF Library. 

The library captions read, respectively:

"A woman is serving her two boys popcorn. Her name is Mrs George Guess. She was the cook of the week. Scanned from the original photo."

"A man wearing an apron is standing at a stove. His name may be Faggo or Foggo. His name is questionable. He was the cook of the week for the local paper. Scanned hard copy of this photo."

UPDATED: If I am not mistaken, the child sitting on the table in the first picture is a pony-tailed Charlotte Guess, dressed up in her cowgirl outfit that most all of us asked for and received for Christmas in the mid to late 1950s.  The young man in the striped shirt is her cousin Bob Brown (not her brother G.G. as earlier reported.)

The gentleman in the second photo is no one I recognize, but I suspect there are some folks out there who will know who this Cook of the Week is.  I also suspect he knew how to cook up some good eats -- he's got at the ready Ann Page cayenne pepper and Milani's Charcol It "for that charcoal broiled flavor." 

What I love about these photos are the glimpses inside of homes from the 1950s: souvenir spoon collections, Reader's Digest hardcover books on the book shelf and decorative, hand-painted plates on the wall -- and let's not overlook the pothos plant on the "get up and change the channel" General Electric television set.

The painted kitchen cabinets in the second picture are nearly identical to the ones that my parents installed in their little post-WWII home.  The countertops, the white enamel stove, the aluminum pot, the bread box, even the printed apron and the cutting board shaped like a pig bring back so many memories. 

Comments here or on Facebook are welcome!

Update: Based on a reader's tip that the man's last name was Foggo, a quick Google search leads me to believe the man in the picture is Ian A. Foggo. 

Ian Aurelius Foggo OBITUARY: Natchez (Miss.) Democrat, Wednesday, March 26, 1975
FOGGO, Brookhaven, I. A. Foggo, 74 of Brookhaven, died Monday evening in Baton Rouge, La.  Funeral services will be this morning at 10 at the Catholic  Church in Brookhaven. Grave side services will be at 2 p.m. at the Natchez City Cemetery. Mr Foggo was a former resident of Natchez. He is survived by one daughter, Ann Glasser of Illinois, and one brother, Henry Foggo of Natchez.

Update: Per Jimmie Meese Moomaw, who is lifelong friends with Mr. Foggo's daughter, Ann, Mr. Foggo managed the Dixie and Arcade theaters in Brookhaven.