Tanya Holland is a celebrated chef and author of the cookbook California Soul. She’s owned restaurants and made the hosts of network TV shows salivate.
“Good morning," says a morning show host.
"Thank you," Holland replies "I’m so happy to be here."
"We’re very happy you brought pulled pork. It looks awesome," the host jo0kes. "Tell us what’s on the table."
"Alright," Holland replies. "We’re starting with the cornbread – I call it confetti cornbread. It has pieces of roasted red and green bell peppers.”
Her love of Southern cuisine dates back to childhood when her mother – a native of Louisiana – and her father, who grew up near Roanoke, demonstrated a passion for good food.
“They cooked the food they grew up with when they entertained friends," she recalls. "Then they also started a gourmet cooking club when I was seven with five other couples that lasted for 20 years.”
When she was in middle school, Holland began her own cooking career.
“One of the first recipes I taught myself – I was a latch-key kid after school, and I was like, ‘What can I make?’ – opening the cabinets to find flour and eggs and butter, and I made choux pastry.”
That, she says, can be filled with pastry crème for eclairs or turned into a savory signature appetizer filled with gruyere cheese and andouille sausage.
In high school, she made a surprising connection to the wonderful world of California cuisine, pioneered by Alice Waters at her Bay Area Eatery.
“I was redecorating my room, and I picked up some posters from a place called Chez Panisse," Holland explains. "I had no idea where it was, what it was. I just liked the artwork. I grew up with those posters, took them to UVA and put them in my rooms, and it wasn’t until I got to France and I saw one of the cookbooks in our library, and I said, ‘Oh, that looks like my art,’ and my friend said, ‘Well that’s a really famous restaurant.’”
In 2001, she would move to Oakland and get to know Waters and her restaurant. Now, Holland is returning to her alma mater, UVA, where she will teach students a bit about what she learned in France and how, centuries earlier, the enslaved chef James Hemings traveled to Paris with Thomas Jefferson -- training there to meld classic techniques with local ingredients.
“Ingredients were brought here from Africans? What were some of the ingredients and techniques from Europe. Also what was found here in Virginia."
Holland will also explore her own philosophies of food.
“I decided early-on in my career that I wanted to cook the food of my heritage, but to update it, make it a little more contemporary and healthier. You know cooking sustainable, local, organic, knowing your farmers, this sort of Mediterranean influence.”
Which is why her collard greens are very different from what her mom used to make.
“My mother definitely didn’t sauté her collard greens. She put them in a big pot with water and a ham hock and some spices and let them cook forever, forever, forever.”
Holland sautés her greens in olive oil with garlic, onion and a dash of hot sauce.
The class will feature other famed chefs, like Michael Twitty and field trips to Monticello and the King Family Vineyards. If students are interested, Holland says, she will also share her experiences working in the restaurant business and spend four days in the university’s test kitchen where students will learn to make macNcheese using a classic béchamel sauce and a bona fide Southern feast of fried chicken, cornbread or biscuits and greens.
For more information, click here.
