Welcome back to Savannah Flavors, our weekly newsletter bringing you the latest delicious details from Savannah’s culinary scene every Thursday.

Here is what’s on the menu today:

• Geneva’s spreading their wings and tenders 🍗 

• Master a new language in only 10 minutes per day!

• Sweet Patrica’s Bakery and their date night chef’s cravings 🍷 

• Try this warm pie recipe with a scoop of vanilla ice cream! 🥧

• $21 for a sandwich?!

THE MAIN DISH

Geneva’s Famous Chicken and Cornbread Co. reopens after massive makeover 🍯🌽 

I can only assume that Day One of journalism school features a lesson on objectivity. 

Good thing I never went to journalism school because you can throw that dictum out the back door on this article.

I love Geneva and Kenny Wade. 

We met nearly five years ago to the day when I wrote about the grand opening of Geneva's Famous Chicken and Cornbread Co., and from the first moment she and I sat down in their fifth and most recent restaurant, she was the aunt I never had.

Since then, my wife and I have enjoyed meals at Geneva’s more often than at any other eatery in Savannah, and Geneva and Kenny have become our dear friends. 

This is the first place I recommend to friends for the flat-out best food in town. Pound for pound, dollar for dollar, bite for bite, this is the place to eat, and those who know know.

At this point, if you don’t know, you don’t know, and shame on you for assuming that this is some fast-food chicken outfit across the parking lot from a Target. Farthest from it, Geneva’s is non-chain scratch-made everything at its finest.

Lucky for all of us, the Wades are set to reopen their Victory Square establishment this week, following a three-month closure that allowed them to undergo an enormous expansion.

As a matter of fact, stop reading right now. Go. Eat.

CHEF’S CRAVINGS

Sweet Patricia's Bakery - Andria & Richelle Canella 🍟 🍔

Each week, I ask the folks behind the phenomenal food at our favorite places around Savannah these same simple questions:

When you are not in your restaurant kitchen, where do you go out to eat and what do you order?

This week’s Chefs’ Cravings come from partners in life and pastry, co-owners of Sweet Patricia’s Bakery 🥐, and winners of Cutest Couple in perpetuity Andria and Richelle Canella.

AC: We have a couple good nighttime spots. I love to go grab a burger at Green Truck, and I order just a Classic, no cheese, fries, and a side salad. That’s my go-to there.

RC: I get the same but with cheese, and we share the side salad before.

AC: Another is Tacos + Tequila, grab a margarita and a couple tacos. My favorite is probably their nachos. Our last regular spot, normally, on Sunday nights, we go to… (RC joins in unison) 

AC & RC: Hop Atomica 🍕

RC: That’s our Sunday night spot. We always do the Queen, that’s our favorite pizza there, and their dip is really great: whipped feta.

AC: Their beer selection sometimes gets a little funky, but our bartender always helps us find something great.

RC: Sunday is the end of our week. We’re off on Monday…

AC: …so we treat it as a Friday. It’s our Friday-night pizza-and-beer. 

And for a special occasion?

AC: I’m going to let you answer this. This is the thing: we always end up eating at home. 

RC: Our date nights end up at home because I have a chef for a wife ❤️

AC: She’s like, “Nobody’s going to cook my steak like you’re going to cook my steak,” you know, so for anniversaries and Valentine’s Day, we normally end up at home for a meal.

-Neil Gabbey

TRIED, TASTED, TRUE

Blueberry-blackberry galette 🫐☕️

THE STORY BEHIND THE RECIPE

One of my first in-the-kitchen memories is ‘helping’ my mom roll out a homemade dough and cracking open a couple of cans of Comstock cherries 🍒. I still remember how to do it all, but it has been years since I have made a bona fide pie.

Because just my wife and I cannot - or should not - polish off a whole nine-inch pie, my go-to baked-fruit-in-a-crust dessert for the last several years has been a galette, the pie’s rustic northern French cousin.

A few weeks back, to thank my colleagues and to pre-celebrate Pi Day 2024, I made this Triple T staple.

One of the plusses of this protean pastry is that, with just some slight tweaks to the dough recipe, it can accommodate savory or sweet fillings with equal aplomb. 

The biggest bonus comes by way of the actual assembly. After rolling out the dough, there is no blind-baking step, and the top crust is not a separate entity to be fiddled and fumbled with.

As is now the case with every edible, the worldwidewebternet is awash with galette recipes, both for the dough and the particular filling. For more than a decade, I subscribed to Cooking Light, and its Blueberry and Blackberry Galette with Cornmeal Crust was one of the first I ever gave a go and remains my baseline whenever I bake a fruit ‘pie’.

The recipe is fine as is, though I have made a few alterations over the years. You certainly can stick with APF for your flour, but I sub out some of the standard for a whole wheat pastry flour which pairs nicely with the cornmeal to form a heartier crust.

As for fruit, the called-for dark berries are fantastic. I now swap one cup of fresh blueberries for the same amount of frozen wild blueberries, and when in season, ripe peaches 🍑 can take the place of the blueberries altogether. 

Where the plot thickens is how the fruit filling thickens. Cooking Light’s original recipe calls for three tablespoons of flour to be mixed into the berries. Honestly, short of adding Type S mortar mix, nothing is going to stop the juicy seepage during baking, but three tablespoons of cornstarch plus another tablespoon of flour will stem some of the indigo tide.

While not integral, a couple teaspoons of balsamic vinegar accentuates the berries’ flavor, and I often prepare the fruit the night before and allow it to macerate in the fridge overnight, straining away some of the liquid before pouring the filling onto the rolled-out dough.

Speaking of: the worst part of this ‘pie’ preparation is not rolling out the dough, rather rolling up the rolled-out dough to then unfurl onto the cornmeal-dusted, parchment-papered baking sheet. Your first attempt will be a disaster. Take heart because the most fun part follows.

Once the berries are on the dough, work quickly. Take one outer edge and bring it toward the center. Working around the perimeter, continue this wrapping routine, angularly folding each subsequent edge over the previous one.

The beauty of this is that the finished product is supposed to look rustic, so how you execute the folding hardly matters - and it will look different every time.

Brush the surface with the egg white-milk mixture and sprinkle liberally with turbinado sugar before what is a relatively de rigueur bake time.

I know what you are thinking: yes, vanilla ice cream 🍨 goes great with a big slice

-Neil Gabbey

THE RECIPE

HARD GOODS 

• 220 g. flour + 2 T. (for fruit)

  • 180 g. APF

  • 40 g. whole wheat pastry flour

• ⅓ c. granulated sugar (for dough)

• ¼ c. cornmeal (Dixie Lily Stone Ground is the best) + more for dusting the baking sheet

• ¼ t. kosher salt 🧂

• 4 c. fresh blueberries (or sub in 1 c. frozen wild blueberries) 🫐

• 2 c. fresh blackberries

• Zest from one lemon 🍋 

• ½. c. granulated sugar (for fruit)

• 3 T. cornstarch

• 2 T. turbinado sugar

WET GOODS

• ½ c. (1 stick) unsalted butter 🧈

• ⅓ c. buttermilk 

• 2 T. lemon juice (half of a large lemon)

• 2 t. balsamic vinegar

• 2 T. milk 🐄 

• 1 large egg white 🥚

DO THIS

1. Place the flour(s), ⅓ cup sugar, cornmeal, and salt into a food processor

2. Pulse a few times to combine

3. Cut the cold butter into ¼” pieces and add to the food processor

4. Pulse a few times until the mixture looks like coarse meal or dry oatmeal

5. With the food processor on, drizzle in the buttermilk through the chute and mix until the dough just forms one ball (a few little pieces may not adhere)

6. Turn the dough onto a lightly floured work surface and gently press into a round about an inch thick

7. Wrap in plastic wrap and chill at least 30 minutes (overnight is fine)

8. In a large mixing bowl, gently combine the berries, ½ cup sugar, lemon zest, lemon juice, balsamic vinegar, cornstarch, and 2 T. flour

   • The fruit can be refrigerated overnight to allow some of the juices to be strained off before baking

9. Preheat an oven to 350°

10. Line a rimmed baking pan with parchment paper and dust with cornmeal

11. Unwrap the chilled dough and place it on a lightly floured work surface

12. Roll the dough into a 15-inch circle, flipping and flouring as needed

13. Gently roll the dough back onto the rolling pin and unfurl onto the parchment paper

    • The dough will go over the pan’s edges 🥧

14. Spoon the fruit onto the center of the dough and spread, leaving at least a two-inch border around

15. Fold the dough by bringing one edge toward the center and then by overlapping each subsequent edge 

16. Whisk the milk and the egg white into a wash and brush it over the entire dough surface

17. Sprinkle with the turbinado sugar

18. Bake for 1 hour (approximately)

BEEN THERE. ATE THAT.

Dottie's Market 🪴🍳🍓

I will freely admit that a guy who writes about food in Savannah should have eaten at Dottie’s Market before it celebrated its first-year anniversary. I made it under the wire when my wife and I flunched there a few Fridays ago when I had the day off from school proper to tally grades and to write quarter comments.

In fact, I have to thank my headmaster for the gift card that we used as well as for his smiley yet seriously succinct recommendation. “The bacon,” he said and then seemed at a loss for adequate additional words of praise.

Dottie’s interior is upscale darling, like a Victorian District manse’s front foyer transplanted on Broughton Street. With mapley woods and honey-gold walls 🍯 and opalescent subway tiles, it is almost too cute for its actual address.

After ordering the rotisserie chicken club at the front counter, we sat at the attractively curved back counter that gives a partial view of the kitchen operations, a modern-day rendition of yesteryear’s luncheonette tucked into a five and dime.

Bite after bite, the sandwich lived up to everything everyone had told me about Dottie’s delicious food, each component house-made. The whole grain rustic bread, unctuous and grilled, was almost wet with melted butter and required a new napkin with every mouthful but provided the perfect toothy crumb for such a sammie 🥪. My little notepad is now dotted with the evidence.

Smashed avocado 🥑 and lemon-pepper mayo made what was delightfully oozy oozier while still allowing the moist rotisserie chicken slabs to be the star. Impeccably crisp bacon slices got a bit lost amid the other components, a complementary morsel coming to the fore here and there, confirming my headmaster’s recommendation.

As is our wont, my wife and I split the sandwich, an amazing sandwich, no doubt, but a $21 sandwich. The potato salad 🥔 was a solid standard, reminiscent of the German version my grandma used to make and my mom improved upon, but not as good as theirs. I am not a pickle guy, but the sweet dill coins were tasty and had a nice after-heat.

At Dottie’s Market, husband-and-wife owners Chris Meenan and Ericka Phillips have clearly created a unique eatery that serves up sumptuous food that epitomizes the overused and often misappropriated term ‘scratch-made’. What Meenan, JP Johnson, Isbell Padilla Perea, and Lillian Kuhl make each day in this single relatively small restaurant boggles the eyes and mind while evidently delighting the bellies of all who belly up.

All the same, I make no bones and often curmudgeonly bemoan that we now live in the land of the $15 sandwich, so a $21 sandwich served with a small ramekin of potato salad gives me palatable pause. For that price tag, I want at least a quarter chicken and four strips of bacon on bread slices the size of Dr. Martens boot sole.

Had we both ordered our own meals and drinks other than two water in tiny plastic cups, lunch would have run us more than fifty dollars. Lunch. On the website, there are no prices listed, which seems tactical.

I know that the $32 souvenir mugs are for the folks from Dallas and Dover and Denver and not for me, which is a.o.k., but unless we are gifted more gift cards to Dottie’s Market, I am not sure how often we will be able to afford eating the wonderful food at this special place. 

-Neil Gabbey