This book is great. I love the pictures and the recipes are not too complicated. I made the Red Velvet recipe for a social gathering and everyone just raved over it!

This cookbook it great with wondeful recipes and delightful stories. Really blends /french techimque with good ole Southern hospitality!!

Wow. This is one of my new favorite cookbooks! My seven year old daughter and I met the author at a book signing and "tasting." She was fabulous, genuine and the picture of Southern hospitality! My daughter and I got two books- one for us and one for my mother. We plan to give it to her for her birthday next month in hopes of continuing our own multi-generational Southern cooking story. The author is an inspiration to Southern cooks to keep cooking and spice it up a bit from time to time. I loved her stories about her "Meme." Thank you for sharing this interesting piece of history, heritage and home with us Miss Virgina. Ya'll will love these recipes!

A thoroughly enjoyable cookbook to read. Easy to follow recipes, nostalgic dialog, just an all around nice addition to my southern cookbook gallery. I have made the barbeque sauce she recommended and with a few personal tweeks, and it is now one of my go-to sauces. It's really tangy and good. I am planning to use this book alot. Virginia Willis has really hit a home run with this one! I also love "The Glory of Southern Cooking" by James Villas. Both of these authors have that old southern charm about them that just warms my heart.

Virginia Willis brings to the crowded table of Southern cooking a unique and welcome voice: warm, witty, steeped in tradition and yet with a sense of playful fun and genuine love for the pleasure of food. This isn't a mere collection of recipes; rather, with each dish Willis shares personal anecdotes and stories from her mind and heart. These pepper (pardon the over-obvious imagery there) the book with a lived-in quality that makes the book feel, and read, as though every recipe held within is a classic.

I'd just like to say that, while I am enjoying some of the recipes in this book, I am a bit disappointed with some of Virginia Willis' comments.

I saw the author on Martha Stewart's show, and I thought the book sounded very interesting. I was pleased to know she had previously worked with Ms Stewart. I particularly liked the fact that she talked about traditions and seemed to be honoring both her own family's traditions and southern traditions, in general. I immediately ordered the book. After receiving the book, and reading it, I have a few comments.

While I find it to be very sweet that Ms. Willis is so interested in preserving her own family's cherished recipes, I found some of her words to be downright insulting. In particular, this quote:

"Some Southern hor d'oeuvres, unfortunately, partake of the "trashy" element of Southern cooking that relies on processed foods." She then goes on to list some hor d'oeuvres which she obviously feels fits this "trashy" definition. (Things such as little smokies sausages served with toothpicks, or recipes using canned crescent rolls and imitation crab.)

Ms Willis, I would just like to say that, I find your comments to be demeaning. I am not a fan of processed foods either, but I am VERY insulted for those people who DO enjoy such recipes! I might choose to skip those dishes, at a potluck, or family gathering, but I certainly wouldn't insult the cook by belittling her choice of ingredients. A family's traditions shouldn't be demeaned, simply because they do not meet you exacting standards. You might not cook that way, but EVERY Southern family has at least one member who DOES cook that way.

I was discussing Martha Stewart's success with my spouse. I asked him how he thought someone as "upper crust" as Ms Stewart had managed to win over the hearts of so many working-class Americans. We agreed that it was because, while she may recommend a higher standard of living, she doesn't demean those who do not meet that standard. Perhaps she secretly thinks less of people who eat bologna, but she is smart enough to keep that fact to herself. I wish you had been smart enough to keep your opinion to yourself.

I will not be recommending your book to anyone I know because, frankly, I would not want my good Southern neighbors to think I shared your opinions. Invariably, at least one member of their family probably serves one of the dishes you insult. I wouldn't want to hurt their heart by having them think that my opinon of their family member's cooking is that they are "trashy".

Ms. Willis has done what few have done before. She has taken the true gracious goodness of the South and the deep love of place and food of France and woven it into a lovely, approachable and delicious cookbook. I hesitate to even call it that, because it's so much more. Part memoir, part instructional manual, part ode to all that is good about food and friends and cooking. I am a Yankee by birth and Southern by the grace of God and I feel right at home in the pages of her journey! Thank you for making me proud to say 'Bon Appetit Y'all'!

5/13/2008
Bon Appetit, Y' All:
Recipes and Stories from
Three Generations of
Southern Cooking
By Virginia Willis
(jacket cover here)
A Review by Marty Martindale

Virginia Willis is a French-trained chef, television producer, food stylist, cooking teacher and food writer. A former Martha Stewart Living' kitchen manager, she now makes her home in Atlanta, Georgia. Over her 30 years' food experience, she has cooked for some greats: President Clinton, Aretha Franklin, Jane Fonda and Julia Child, to mention some.
Though Virginia Willis was born a child of the South and dedicated to the south, she knew she had to go out into the world to learn how to share her early world with those not of it. This was not enough. After she apprenticed under Nathalie Dupree, she went north to New York to study and work gathering more food experience. This was also not enough. She then went to France to study under Anne Willan. There, she graduated from L'Academie de Cuisine and Ecole de Cuisine LaVarenne. She returned to New York for more television production experience. Finally, it was time to return to Atlanta, her roots, her family and the foods from which she sprang. She brought it all together, it was ready, and it is stunning!
"These are recipes for your home kitchen, not restaurant-driven creations. They are recipes for families, for displaced Southerners yeaning for a taste of home ... also for those who simply want to spend time in the kitchen working and playing with food," Willis states. This book is her statement which says, "Welcome to my Southern kitchen. Pull up a chair." So, let's do just that, and here's some highlights of just a few of Willis's recipes:
* Classic Coleslaw: She uses sugar, homemade mayo, buttermilk, lemon juice, cider vinegar, dry mustard, green cabbage, red cabbage, and shredder carrot.
* Honey Figs with Goat Cheese and Pecans: She prefers these by blended with Tupelo Orange Blossom or Sweet Clover Honey, also black pepper.
* Coca-Cola-Glazed Baby Back Ribs: She uses Classic, cider vinegar, brown sugar, Scotch bonnet chiles and seasoning.
* Pork Chops with Dried Plums: She simply adds canola oil, garlic, beef stock and fresh thyme.
* Seafood Gumbo: Unsalted butter, flour, Vidalia onion, bell pepper, stock, jumbo shrimp or lump crabmeat, hot sauce and file powder
* Grits with Corn and Videlia Onion: Canola oil, Vidalia onion, fresh sweet corn, milk, water, stone-ground grits, unsalted butter, Parmigiano-Reggiano cheese, parsley and chives
* Horsradish Mashed Potatoes: Yukon gold potatoes, heavy cream, milk, unsalted butter and fresh-grated horseradish
* Toasted-Pecan Green Beans: oaricorts verts or thin green beans, olive oil, pecans, garlic and fresh basil.
* Spinach with Shallots, Pine Nuts and Golden Raisins: These just need chicken stock and freshly ground black pepper.
* Meme's Cornmeal Griddle Cakes: Just add baking powder, sea salt, an egg, some water and some oil for frying.
* Pecan-Basil Pistou: Fresh basil, garlic, pine nuts or walnuts, Parmigiano-Reggiano and extra-virgin olive oil
* Jalapeno Tartar Sauce: Homemade mayonnaise, sweet pickle relish, capers, lemon juice and zest, horseradish and hot sauce
* Georgia Pecan Brownies: Unsalted butter, sugar, flour, cocoa powder, baking powder, eggs, vanilla and semisweet chocolate
* Georgia Peach Souffles: Unsalted butter, lemon juice, vanilla, egg whites, sugar and some confectioner's sugar for sprinkling

A cookbook's "headnotes" are the short paragraphs listed after each recipe title and before the ingredients and directions. And, it's a loving and careful cook who takes the time and shares her personal memories in a these headnotes, Here, Willis also uses this area to remove any doubt you might have as to your success with her recipe. Frequently, she may add a work-saving tip, sometimes some interesting history of the dish or its main ingredient.
Virginia Willis' website: Virginia Willis
Marty Martindale's website: Food Site of the Day
Special interests: Culinary Couth Potato, Gourmet

I too have waited for this wonderful book. My mother and I have taken several cooking classes from Virginia at the Whole Foods here in Alpharetta, Georgia. I can't even tell you how much fun she is. She is a true "raconteur" and an amazing chef. Like Virginia herself, I come from a long line of true southern cooks, most notably my mother, grandmother, and great aunt. Two of these great ladies have already passed away but I will never forget their cooking. It was the way they showed love to us and I can still feel it.

This book is so much more than a cookbook, but what a cookbook it is!! My mom and I have this crazy idea to "cook the book" and my husband and my dad want to know "When are you going to start?". We both love French cuisine and southern cooking above all others so this is book is a dream; and it's even more exciting since we have had the pleasure of meeting Virginia.

Invest in this book and buy one for a friend. .

Not just a necessary staple in any kitchen cookbook collection, this book works as a great read from any bookshelf, as a stylish table book and certainly as a treasured gift to any grandmother, mother or daughter. In every way, Bon Appetit, Y'all is beautiful in form and content. I'm not much of a kitchen person, yet Virginia Willis has created such a delicious read with so many incredible tastes that I am likely to make a day of cooking from the book with my Mother and my daughter just to share the experiences that Willis so tangibly and palatably presents. Consider this the quintessential family heirloom cookbook to be used and marked in and shared from one kitchen and one generation to another. Kudos to Virginia Willis for understanding that cooking and family go together whether you are in South Georgia or the South of France. Bon Appetit, Y'all is c'est magnifique!

As a former chef and current owner of several hundred cookbooks, I can be pretty critical. I've got nothing to complain about with this book. Ms. Willis has used her considerable experience with food and cooking to author a beautiful and beautifully written book. This volume is well illustrated with great photographs that make me hungry to try the recipes. There is plenty that even an accomplished cook can learn from this fun-to-read book.