If you can't stand the heat...Get the hell out of New Orleans!<br><br>Liquor has become one of the hottest restaurants in town, thanks in part to chefs Rickey and G-man&#8217;s wildly creative, booze-laced food. At the tail end of a busy Mardi Gras, Milford Goodman walks into their kitchen&#8212;he&#8217;s spent the last ten years in Angola Prison for murdering his boss, a wealthy New Orleans restaurateur, but has recently been exonerated on new evidence and released. Rickey remembers him as an ingenious chef and hires him on the spot. <br><br>When a pill-pushing doctor and a Carnival scion talk Rickey into consulting at the restaurant they&#8217;re opening in one of the city&#8217;s &#8220;floating casinos,&#8221; Rickey recommends Milford for the head chef position and stays on to supervise. But soon Rickey finds himself medicating a kitchen injury with the doctor&#8217;s wares, and G-man grows tired of holding down the fort at Liquor alone. As the new restaurant moves toward its opening, Rickey learns that Milford&#8217;s past is inextricably linked with one of the project&#8217;s backers, a man whose intentions begin to seem more and more sinister.<br><br>Full of the flavor of one of America&#8217;s greatest cities, <i>Soul Kitchen</i> is a sharp commentary on race relations in pre-Katrina New Orleans and a fast ride through the dark side of haute cuisine.