Smyth County, Virginia, located in the mountains of southwest Virginia, offering outdoor adventures and small town charm.

Details online at VisitSmythCountyVA.com.

[birds calling] [uplifting music] [Chef Missy] Being a chef isn't glamorous.

It's loud and pushy.

It's intense, hot, and certifiably exhausting.

What drives this cooking obsession?

Is it love?

Is it passion?

Is it my compulsive need to create something beautiful and perfect?

When I touch nature, the game, fish, and fresh produce, I understand my place as a chef in the world.

The land and its people inspire me to give a passionate voice to food.

The long-tailed ornamental pheasant with its harem of hens reigns as a prince over grain fields near brushy sage of Southwest Virginia.

An early spring hunt captures the tail end of soft flavored game bird first brought to North America from Asia in 1773.

Whether braised, grilled, or baked, its dark, tender meat dominates the palate.

Hi, I'm Chef Missy, and I'm the French Magnolia, a true blue southern gal with French ancestry running through my veins.

My husband, Thomas, is a wine expert and hospitality veteran.

Throughout our careers, we've worked for some incredible restaurants and hotels from Atlanta to New York City to Charleston, South Carolina, to the edge of a mountain at a five-star relay and chateau.

But pretty soon, the French Magnolia, a luxury, moveable feast company, was born.

We pour into your home and set an elaborate stage for a multi-course culinary and wine experience.

We settled in Bristol, Virginia, a good place to live.

And when we're not working, we love connecting with local farms and Appalachian culture.

From farm, field, garden, and stream to chef and Somme to the table, all in one day, this is the French Magnolia Cooks.

It's a gorgeous spring day, and we are out here at Holland Hunting Preserve in Southwest Virginia.

And we are with John Holland who's the owner of this amazing preserve.

Thank you so much for letting us be here.

We're just so blessed with this great weather.

We're very excited.

John, tell me a little bit about the history and provenance of this land and how it came to you.

-Well, Missy, first of all, thank you for being here.

We love to share the story.

-[Chef Missy] Yeah.

-Well, it's been passed on through the family since 1835 when my great-great-great-grandfather purchased a property from William Burwell, who was secretary to Thomas Jefferson.

-[Chef Missy] Wow.

-And it's been passed down in the family since that time.

-[Chef Missy] Wow.

-I grew up, it was a dairy and tobacco farm.

And we farmed and milked cows.

And during that time, some of the opportunities that we had led me to where I am today.

We had wild birds back in the day, which don't have very many anymore.

So, it was a great thing for us after milking on a Saturday, to be able to go bird hunting with Dad and the brothers, and all the others that went along with it.

The year 2000, I started the hunting preserve.

[Chef Missy] Very cool.

How many acres are here?

[John Holland] There's about 350.

-Share with me a little bit about what kind of wild birds are hunted here and when that season begins, and when does it end?

-We have the quail, which were native here, but these are Pernois Quail, Chukar, and Pheasant.

Best time to hunt is after the first frost in the fall and before the last frost in the spring.

-We're in for a great day.

I'm super excited.

-Oh, we are.

It's great.

-Thank you, John.

-Thank you for being here.

-[Chef Missy] Yeah.

-[John Holland] Yes.

[Chef Missy] My dear friend, John Gurley, and his son are heading up our pheasant hunt today.

John has been a four-season hunter and angler since he was a young boy.

He is now a well-respected field and stream expert, and we've been friends for a very long time.

-[Chef Missy] Yay.

-[John Gurley] You've met John.

-[John Jr.] How are you?

-[Chef Missy] Good to see you.

So, good to see you.

Can you believe that we have been friends for nearly 30 years?

-I can't.

-Isn't that awesome?

-Unbelievable.

-I love it.

We look exactly the same, don't we?

-Oh, that's for sure.

-We haven't aged a day.

Tell me, what kind of gun are you going to use today to hunt?

-Today, we're going to use shotguns.

A shotgun has a shell that would have gunpowder in it, that would then have a wad that is inside there that holds the BBs, which are the shot, and it comes out of the shell, and it has a pattern that would be wider, making it easier to hit a bird that would be in flight.

-So, I've heard we've got kind of a local movie star, Molly, who's going to be kind of the star of the show today.

-We do.

-Molly.

-Molly.

-She's an amazing bird dog, I hear.

-[John Gurley] She is.

I've had dogs that I've hunted with, and you get to the point where sometimes you'd rather watch your dog work than actually shoot the birds because it's such a great part of it.

And they'll go on point.

And when I say on point, they'll freeze and they'll actually pick a leg up and with their nose point at where the bird is.

And you'll know they'll be stone cold still when they're standing there.

-[gunshots] -I heard you brought your son, John Junior.

-I did.

-Oh.

-I'm proud to have him with me.

He's a-- he's been an avid hunter and fisherman since he was little, and I'm proud he's an Eagle Scout and loves the outdoors like I do and his brother as well.

So, I'm so excited to have John here with me today.

-Beautiful.

Yeah.

Hey, come on in.

Hey, I'm so glad you're here today.

I heard you're a great shot so I can't wait to see you in action.

John Junior, tell me your favorite thing about pheasant hunting.

-Well, I would have to say that my favorite thing about pheasant hunting is the memories that it brings back, going to our property in Kansas with my grandfather and my dad and my uncles and my cousins, and just going out there and pheasant hunting all day long.

And end of the day, you're so tuckered out, you just get a good night's rest and do the same thing next day.

-Nice.

I love it.

[blowing whistle] [Chef Missy] [whispers] Look at that pheasant.

That is beautiful.

[John Gurley] There it is.

Good girl.

So, that's the first one.

-Night.

Night.

-[John Gurley laughs] Say goodbye.

-[both laugh] [man] Take him, John.

Good shot.

Keep working it.

Get it.

[Chef Missy] Good girl.

[John Gurley] Ah-hah.

Atta, baby.

[John Holland] It's more like a quail.

It's all white meat, where the chukar's dark meat.

[John Gurley] John, take it.

Get that.

[Chef Missy] Awesome.

That was awesome.

[John Gurley] You got a good one?

[Chef Missy] That was great.

That was perfect.

[John Gurley] All right.

[Chef Missy] That was so great.

-Okay, John, we've had a big day.

-It's been great.

You guys did well.

Well, we're gonna process the birds and prepare them for cooking.

[Chef Missy] So, you clip the feet and clip the wings.

-[John Holland] And the wings.

-[Chef Missy] Okay.

[John Holland] Mm-hm.

Once the extremities are cut off, you can-- we can skin it.

-[Chef Missy] Okay.

[John Holland] And you want these feathers, right?

[Chef Missy] I do.

[John Holland] And we skin the bird.

You can pluck it if you want.

[Chef Missy] ...in there, and just pulling it back.

[John Holland] If you want to pluck it, you can.

[Chef Missy] No.

[John Holland] But it's a whole lot of effort to pluck a pheasant.

-[Chef Missy] No, exactly.

[John Holland] The next part is a little messy.

[Chef Missy] Okay.

[John Holland] Because we have to cut out the backbone into the entrails.

-[Chef Missy] Gotcha.

Okay.

[John Holland] Might have put you on a payroll for bird cleaner.

You're doing so well.

[Chef Missy] [laughs] Good.

Hey.

There he is.

[John Holland] Not shot up bad at all.

You hardly see any shot.

-[Chef Missy] No.

-Pheasant are a little tougher to clean than the other birds.

[Chef Missy] Well, they're so beautiful, physically beautiful, so majestic.

But it looks like there's quite a bit more, you know, meat, for sure, on this versus a quail.

[John Holland] Oh, yeah.

Yeah.

-So, share with me your vision and prayer for this property.

And in the most beautiful best-case scenario, what you would love to see happen, say, 50 years from now or a hundred years from now?

[John Holland] I'd like to see it passed on.

[Chef Missy] Yeah.

Right.

I love connecting with the bird, connecting with the animal, and getting to see it all the way through to the plate.

Did I prep-- have I pretty much gotten everything?

-[John Holland] Mm-hm.

-[Chef Missy] Okay.

[John Holland] You've done pretty good.

[Chef Missy] Is he ready for the bucket?

-[John Holland] Yep.

-[Chef Missy] Okay.

Okay.

Whoo-hoo.

-That's fine.

-We did it.

Yay.

[laughs] I'm so excited.

-Thank you for coming.

-Thank you.

[John Holland] Such a joy to have you back.

[Chef Missy] Oh, awesome, beautiful country.

-Thank you.

Thanks for coming and sharing it.

-Thank you.

You have a great day.

-Great.

It's been a tremendous day.

We were blessed.

-Yeah, for sure.

Blessed is the word.

Blessed is the word.

-Without a doubt.

[Chef Missy] I'll be thinking about how special this day is for a long time.

We're back in the French Magnolia culinary center and planning a terrific dinner party.

John, our field and stream expert, is here with his sister Kaye.

And we have invited our new neighbors, Skyler and Allison, to join us as well.

Skyler is a third-generation Bristolian, so I know that we will be in for some great local, generational stories tonight.

-Hey.

I'm John.

You're Skyler.

Hi, Skyler.

Nice to meet you.

-Hi, Skyler.

I'm Kaye.

-Very nice to meet you.

[Thomas] Skyler.

Cheers!

-Cheers to old friends and new friends.

-[Thomas] Cheers.

-[Chef Missy] And husbands.

-[Thomas] Yay.

-[Chef Missy] Hi.

So, this is a garlic mustard aioli.

We've got beautiful organic asparagus, and you just dippy and eat it like that.

-Missy, that tree by your firepit is beautiful.

-It's amazing.

-I mean, how old is that tree?

-Maybe anywhere between like 500 years, maybe 800 years, something like that.

This is pumpernickel toast points with a little good French extra virgin olive oil, just lightly toasted, and then all-American cream cheese.

Schmear.

And this has been kind of sitting out.

So, it's good and smeary, which is the official word.

Wild Alaskan smoked salmon.

So, little caper.

And then what kind of pulls it all together is fresh dill.

Since it's the birthday boy, we'll go first.

-Oh, wow.

We're lucky.

-Yay.

-[John Gurley] Wow.

-And then, I'm gonna get going on sauce chasseur.

Sauce chasseur.

-[Thomas] What is that?

[Kaye] Can you say it 10 times fast?

-Exactly.

Actually, this morning, when I was blow-drying my hair, I was like sauce chasseur.

Chasseur, chasseur.

Sauce chasseur.

Sauce chasseur, which is basically a hunter sauce.

[Kaye] Oh, okay.

Great.

-It's a mushroom-based sauce with tomato paste and shallots and wine and cognac.

I think what's great about doing what you're doing now, which is the whole gardening, gun, and field and stream, and shining in those gifts is that you are taking 30, 40, 50 years of wisdom and knowledge and mistakes.

[John Gurley] Right.

-And able to funnel that to young people.

[John Gurley] 'Cause I'm taking what my father learned from my grandfather, which learned from his father.

So it's... -[Chef Missy] Right.

-...it goes way, way back.

-[Thomas] Generations.

-[Chef Missy] Yeah.

-[John Gurley] Yeah.

-Generational blessings.

-[John Gurley] It is.

It is fun to pass that along.

-[Thomas] I always wanted to walk around the woods with a loaded gun.

[laughter] -Okay, so we've just had an amazing hunt today.

And we're going to have slow-roasted braised pheasant roulade.

And one of the things that works beautifully-- pairs beautifully with that pheasant is something called sauce chasseur.

And it basically means hunter sauce.

And it's a mushroom sauce with tomato paste and cognac and wine and shallots and lots of butter.

And it's super delicious.

This is when the milk fat start to release and the butter becomes what's called brown butter, and it becomes very sweet and delicious.

The truth is this is about nine cups of wild organic mushrooms, and you think that this looks like so many mushrooms.

Mushrooms really reduce down, and they become super tiny.

See all this liquid that's coming out of the mushrooms?

You're going to start seeing a lot of liquid release out.

But then the longer you cook it, the more that liquid will reduce and evaporate.

One of the tricks of salting is, the higher you go with your salt, the less likely you are to over salt.

Fresh ground pepper.

Butter works itself out, whereas oil just will make your dish oily.

It smells like soil.

It's so wonderful.

-[Thomas] And butter.

-[Chef Missy] And butter.

[laughter] [Chef Missy] When in doubt, add more butter.

We're going to go ahead and add the shallots.

And the shallots will start to just clear out and sort of dissipate.

The other flavors are very strong and pungent.

They're not going-- they're going to overtake this little bit of shallots.

This is French white wine, white burgundy, and cognac.

One, two, that's the technical amount.

Okay.

All right, so we're gonna let this reduce by half.

Okay, we're back here with the mushrooms, and they're perfect and gorgeous.

So, now we're going to add in about half a cup to one cup of deep beef bouillon.

This is a beef demi-glaze, and I've reduced it just a little bit with some warm water.

You're going to do about half a cup.

It has a very salty, nutrient-dense flavor profile.

And then... about a cup, cup and a half of tomato paste.

-[John Gurley] That smells good.

-[Chef Missy] Yeah.

It has a wonderful aroma.

So, I'm going to give it a quick taste and basically just for salt content.

Mm.

That's very, very good.

Now I'm actually going to just thin this out with a cup of stock.

And the reason I added a little bit of stock is that this is going to sit for a little while, and so I don't want it to be too thick by the time we sit down at the table.

And then I've got a bunch of beautiful fresh tarragon that I'm going to chop and sprinkle over the sauce and over the pheasant when it gets plattered up before we serve it at the table.

I'll give the birthday boy first dibs on tasting.

-That is really, uh... -Right?

-Wow.

[Kaye] Oh, goodie.

-So, there's rich flavors.

-Way to go on that.

-Yay.

Okay, we are back in the kitchen with this gorgeous game bird, the pheasant.

There are so many ways that you can prepare this bird.

But I chose the pheasant roulade.

My technique is to research eight, nine, 10, 11, 12 recipes, old recipes, old cookbooks.

And then take elements that I love from all those recipes and build my own recipe.

For my guests, I just want to make it easy.

I don't want them to have to contend with a lot of bones.

And I'm going to go ahead and leave more leg.

Still on the bone, it's going to get soft in the Dutch oven.

Go ahead and trim up that fat.

And it is really important that you scrub your hands really good after handling raw meat of any kind.

And that it goes without saying, but just want to remind everybody.

So I'm just going to take this with the scissors right down here.

Give it a good crunch.

Crunch, crunch.

Snap right in half.

And just really any kind of good kitchen shears will do.

And I'm guessing, John, that this is the spray from...?

[John Gurley] That is from the shot.

From the shotgun.

-Because it's not a bullet?

-No.

-[Chef Missy laughs] -When you're shooting birds, you use a shotgun which has a shotgun shell.

Unlike when you're shooting other big game, you use a rifle which would have a single bullet.

-Right.

-The shotgun shell has many pellets in it.

-Right.

-So, you'll find that a lot of these-- this one might have more than one hole in it where it shoots a pattern out.

And if you think about the birds flying along and you shoot a pattern out, the bird flies into the pattern.

-Right.

-Then you have a higher likelihood of hitting it.

It's not uncommon when you're eating a game bird like this that you might get a pellet.

-Oh, really?

-Yeah.

So... -Okay.

Good to know.

-We will give a little-- we'll give a little prize out to somebody if they get a-- if they actually can.

-Kind of like the dime and-- -That's exactly right.

Yeah, yeah.

-And the black-eyed peas.

Okay, so that's safe and good and no harm.

-Safe and good and no harm.

-Okay, even that made a little bruise.

He got bruised.

-It did get bruised bad.

-It got bruised bad.

Okay, excellent.

So-- -That looks great.

Yeah.

-Doesn't that look beautiful?

-It's really, really good.

-This is a two-inch hotel pan, but you can use a bus tub or just work out of the kitchen sink.

So, this pheasant is clean, padded dry, defatted, boned, ready to go.

I'm using this beautiful Le Creuset Dutch oven which I love.

I've had it for almost 15 years.

Hopefully, I'll have it forever.

If you don't have a Dutch oven but you have a crock pot, then you can use your crock pot for this dish.

This is a little homemade French dressing.

And this is orange juice, fresh shallots, and a little stock.

But since we're making pheasant roulade, we want it to have that super orangey flavor profile.

And then, orange marmalade.

You just can't beat it.

Paddington Bear lived on orange marmalade.

-That's exactly what I said.

[Chef Missy] So, we have everything in the pot.

In no particular order, just get it in the Dutch oven.

And then we're going to finish it with a little fresh ground cumin.

Maybe about two tablespoons.

Wonderful, earthy smell.

Love that.

Cumin is one of my favorite spices but it's especially great with any kind of game.

These flavors just deserve to go together.

So, cover it.

Set it aside.

You can do this the night before, put it-- keep it in the refrigerator, but this is going to cook on low for one hour.

Our side dishes are going to be organic wild rice, roasted organic carrots, slow-cooked cabbage with leeks and apples.

The fruit is really important.

You want a tangy and fruity balance to the game.

Thomas does beautiful wine teachings for all our chef's tables.

So we thought it would be fun for him to talk about his amazing wine choices for tonight.

[Thomas] In Burgundy, there are two grapes, Chardonnay and Pinot Noir, the red and white.

The harder the roots work through the layers of soil, the more character you're gonna get.

Through the struggle, comes character.

This is a 2015 Premier Cru, and with this pheasant, with the wild rice, I think this is going to be a spectacular pairing.

If you don't have a spectacular Pinot Noir from Burgundy, another more of a value play, you could say, would be a Gran Reserva Rioja from Spain.

But you have to work through this first.

-[Chef Missy] Okay.

-All right.

We'll do our part, right?

Okay.

-[Kaye] Thank you.

-[Thomas] Absolutely.

-[Kaye] Thank you.

-[Chef Missy] Okay.

-[John Gurley] Oh, wow.

[Chef Missy] Who wants some little pheasant?

[Kaye] It smells amazing, Missy.

Oh, my word.

That is so good.

[John Gurley] Oh, that is really good.

-[Thomas] That's-- that's... -Wow.

-[John Gurley] Man.

-[Kaye] That's amazing.

-[Thomas] That's memorable.

-[Chef Missy] Wow.

[Kaye] It-- it's still-- absolutely delicious.

So good.

-From field to table, it's about as good as it gets.

-[Chef Missy] Aww.

-The sauce that you've made to go with this pheasant is top-tier.

-[Chef Missy] Aw.

-So, here's cheers to you.

-[Chef Missy] Thank you.

Aw.

Thank you.

-And thank you both for the wine and for this incredible meal.

-[Chef Missy] Thank you.

-Really, really good.

Pheasant has always been attributed to the nobility of old.

But today, you don't have to go too far to find generational blessings of land... family... joyful marriage... and friendships that endure the test of time.

Yay!

Everything about eating is a reliance on a symphony of talents.

Greatness is a culmination of many people shining in their individual gifts.

The seasoned farmer, the wise and discerning hunter, and of course, the passionate and particular cook curating recipes to be held on high for future generations, emulsified and worked into the perfect bite.

The perfect meal opens hearts.

It sets the stage for declarations and seals decisions.

It documents celebrations.

The perfect meal can strengthen words... Heavenly Father, thank you so much.

...set in motion pure dreams, and mobilize new nations.

The perfect meal can catapult our faith into a great future.

Sometimes, all we need is a dinner party.

[music fades out] Smyth County, Virginia, offering a business friendly environment with partnerships like Smyth Strong fostering entrepreneurship and growth.

Details at SmythCountyEconomicDevelopment.c om.