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A Holiday Party Menu From Chef Virginia Willis

Atlanta-based Chef Virginia Willis's bag of Southern recipes is filled with foods fit to grace the table at any holiday party. by Erin Z. Bass When Chef Virginia Willis contacted us over the summer to find out if we wanted to post a couple of her recipes on our site and add a copy of her latest cookbook, "Bon Appetit, Y'all: Recipes and Stories from Three Generations of Southern Cooking," to our library, we of course said yes. (I believe my exact response to her e-mail was: "I feel like I've been contacted by a Southern celebrity!") Virginia has worked with Martha Stewart as kitchen director for her TV show, where she cooked for President Clinton, Aretha Franklin and Julia Child, as well as tested and edited "The All-New Joy of Cooking." Her career in the kitchen began in Atlanta as an apprentice to Nathalie Dupree, credited with starting the "New Southern Cooking" movement that has spread through restaurants across the South. Dupree's influence can be found in "Bon Appetit, Y'all," which is distinctly Southern in feel without being cliche. Alton Brown may have summed it up best in his praise on the back cover: "Most Southern cookbooks, even the really