Virginia Willis
Award-winning chef and cookbook author Chef Virginia Willis has made chocolate chip cookies with Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson, foraged for berries in the Alaskan wilderness, harvested capers in the shadow of a smoldering volcano in Sicily, and hunted for truffles in France. She was the celebrity chef at the Mansion at Churchill Downs for the 143rd running of the Kentucky Derby, has spoken at SXSW, and beguiled celebrities such as Bill Clinton, Jane Fonda, and Aretha Franklin with her cooking -- and it all started in her grandmother’s country kitchen.
Chef Virginia is one of the most respected voices on Southern food and culture. She is the author of Secrets of the Southern Table: A Food Lover’s Tour of the Global South. Her other books include Lighten Up, Y'all; Bon Appétit, Y'all; Basic to Brilliant, Y'all; Okra; and Grits. Lighten Up, Y’all won a James Beard Foundation Award of Excellence in the Focus on Healthy Category. Lighten Up, Y’all as well as her first cookbook, Bon Appétit, Y’all, were finalists in the Best American Cookbook for the International Association of Cookbook Awards and were also named by the Georgia Center of the Book as "Books Georgians Should Read."
She writes the popular food blog “Cooking with Virginia” on SouthernKitchen.com and has been featured in the New York Times, People Magazine, and the Washington Post. Virginia has appeared on Food Network's Chopped, A Chef’s Life, Fox Family and Friends, Martha Stewart Living, “In the Kitchen with David” on QVC, and as a judge on Throwdown with Bobby Flay. She divides her time between Atlanta, Georgia and New England. To learn more about Virginia, click here.
Shrimp have a season. We’ll get to that quick and easy weeknight recipe in just a sec, but first, I want to chat a bit about how shrimp gets to on your plate — and a little moonlight magic. We’re used to always seeing shrimp in the case at the grocery store, but shrimp, like pretty much everything else on Earth, have a season.
It’s still high barbecue and grilling season. This means pork butts slowly smoking on a kamado cooker; burgers, brats, and chops sizzling over a precise pyramid of red hot embers in a kettle grill; and the juicy staccato of fat dripping from tender, succulent racks of ribs into the blue flame of a gas grill.
Visions of exploding jars, glass shards littering the pantry like a war zone, and thoughts of relatives keeling over from botulism prevent most of us from attempting to make preserves. The whole process seems like some sort of mysterious alchemy, the magical secrets shared only with twinkly-eyed grandmothers in farm kitchens. Let me let you in on a secret: If you can boil water, you can make a pickle.
Frozen treats beat the heat! Did you know that centuries ago, ice was hauled down from the mountains and stored in ice houses, then sweetened to create “sherbets” for ancient Persian rulers? We also know that Alexander the Great enjoyed snow flavored with honey and nectar and King Solomon was fond of iced drinks. During the Roman Empire, Nero sent minions into the Alps for snow and then his chefs flavored this precious import with pureed fruits and juices. Face it, we’ve been trying to chill out for millennia.