saving Gullah Homes and Cemeteries on Daufuskie Island

Celebrity chef, television personality, and cookbook author Sallie Ann Robinson is a sixth-generation native of Daufuskie Island, South Carolina, renowned for her culinary expertise, entertaining presentations, and knowledge of Southeastern United States Gullah culture. Chef Robinson has maintained a notable presence on national television, in popular magazines, and at the podium for more than a decade. Her television appearances have been many and include Georgia Public Broadcasting’s Dixie Divas in the Kitchen, The QVC Show, The 700 Club, CN8’s Your Morning Show, The Food Network and The Travel Channel’s Bizarre Foods with Andrew Zimmern and Netflix. Articles showcasing her life and work have been presented in such publications as the 2005 Old Farmer’s Almanac; Southern Living, National Geographic (December 1987), Hilton Head Monthly, Celebrate Hilton Head, Opera Magazine July/August 2020 South Magazine, Smithsonian documentry and in Garden and Gun Magazine.

In 2003, the University of North Carolina Press published Robinson’s first book, Gullah Home Cooking the Daufuskie Way. The book successfully combined sea island recipes with personal memoir and drew critical praise from diverse reviewers. Publication of her second cookbook, Cooking the Gullah Way, Morning, Noon, and Night, followed in 2007 with seventy-five recipes and home remedies. Once again, critics and readers alike praised the author for the storytelling quality of memoir in the book, the authenticity of the recipes, and the tasty results achieved when trying them. Her third cookbook, Sallie Ann Robinson’s Kitchen: Food & Family Lore from the Lowcountry, a collection of 100 old and new recipes, was released in September of 2019 by University of Florida. Chef Robinson conducts cooking demos locally and nationally (in 2011 she was the featured guest chef at The Smithsonian in Washington, D.C.), conducts tours/lectures about the history of Daufuskie Island and caters for private functions.

Chef Robinson first attained national prominence as a character named Ethel (based on real-life events), one of the students portrayed in famed author Pat Conroy’s novel, The Water Is Wide. Since its publication in 1972, the novel has inspired stage adaptations as well as two major movie productions. Pat Conroy wrote the foreword to Sallie Ann's first cookbbook and was a dear friend and mentor since the day he was her sixth grade teacher. The historic schoolhouse where he taught is a stop on the tour. Sallie Ann is a contributor author to the book Our Prince of Scribes: Writers Remember Pat Conroy.