Just a few days after the 4th of July, I’m down in Florida working on Season 6 of Eat It and Like It. It would be a little pretentious to say I was ‘on location’ but in fact I was. Sandals and shorts, but hey, it was Florida. Email dings into my pocket. It’s a note from a Chef I’d never spoken to before by the name is Jon Ashton with Parade Magazine. Jon is an accomplished chef and columnist for that publication and was looking for some intel on the Hostess City. The biggest irony? He’s based out of Chicago. I was planning on being in Chicago a week later. 5 days later, we sat in a greasy spoon in Evanston, near Northwestern University and talked about Savannah. What a great guy. He even gave my daughter and I a short driving tour of Chicago. Snapped some photos with us and dropped us off back at our hotel downtown.
A week after that, Jon and his film crew were here in Savannah eating and liking their way across the historic district. Quite an endeavor, but he was up to the task.
We met at B. Matthew’s Eatery for Brunch and a chat about what is great about Savannah. I told him he didn’t have enough time or film in his camera for that kind of conversation. The food, I said, was incredibly good and getting better every day. Strangely enough, he didn’t ask me about fried chicken, which, not only was I happy about, but glad to see that people are coming to Savannah looking for Southern staples with a twist. The Fried Green Tomato Benedict you can find at B. Matthew’s is a perfect example of that.
Chef Jon expressed a great curiosity about our city and its history. I told him he was likely to gain 10 lbs in the 4 days they were here. The list of spots he visited were his own. I gave him a general idea and sent him on his way. The finished product will be distributed around the world. Kudos to all those in Savannah’s kitchens who made it on a national platform.
See you on TV,
Jesse
