Simmer Down Podcast: ooh la la Meet Virginia
This is a very special week on Simmer Down! We had the opportunity to sit down to breakfast at B. Matthews restaurant in Savannah and catch up with Chef Virginia Willis and her mom…also Virginia. We talk everything from Chanel lipstick, Meme’s pound cake recipe, Pappy Van Winkle Bourbon to the “easy on the eyes” cattle rancher Will Harris! Meet Virginia Y’all!
Ginny’s Pink Bike
I remember meeting Ginny Branch’s cotton candy pink bicycle before I met her. I had chained my own retro bicycle to the same “Loading Zone Only” sign as hers. Ginny was a student at Savannah College of Art and Design and was applying for a part-time job at a lifestyle store I was struggling to help open. The Paris Market and Brocante is arguably the most eccentric, thoughtful hipster dream store in the United States.
A Fishy Story
Even though it’s the first time I’ve ever stepped foot inside Charles J. Russo Seafood in Savannah, Georgia, I’m hit with an oyster pallet of memories. The fish market’s utilitarian, no-frills décor and the understated scent of the sea feel vaguely familiar.
The Wish of a Feather
It wasn’t the first time he had seen me performing this surgery, so this was no WTF moment. He just shook his head and walked the other way. You see, my son seems to understand the oddity of my attraction to the plumage of birds. He’s seen their colorful feathers in specimen jars that line a shelf in my office since as long as he can remember.
A Thanksgiving Primer
When I was ten, mom bought me a set of Christopher Columbus paper dolls from one of those newsprint Scholastic mailers. The punch-out dolls consisted of a dozen or so white men and a handful of natives, but I didn’t know what to do with them. This predated the PC police and Lies My Teacher Told Me, so I didn’t yet know that “discovery” is a euphemism for taking what isn’t rightfully yours. In other words, I didn’t have Columbus and his men fight with the natives; instead, they sat down together for the first Thanksgiving dinner.
