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

Details online at VisitSmythCountyVA.com.

[Chef Missy] When I met my husband, he was 45 and had never been engaged or married.

But very quickly, he was sold on that "forever" kind of love and had captured my heart too.

Catching a rainbow trout is a little like catching a wife.

It's a recipe-driven courtship, equal parts rhythm and timing, a dash of confidence, and of course, the right lure.

If you're patient and you know all the best streams, you will eventually earn a good catch that shines its true colors, both nutty and sweet, and doesn't give up without a fight.

In a very small part of the world, a narrow winding backroad lined with blackberry thickets carries you to a tiny road in the Appalachian foothills.

There, inside the blink of an eye, dwells a gushing, bright, immaculate mountain spring.

With grace and grit, a young family answers the call to steward a water rock and revive a 90-year-old trout hatchery.

Rainbow trout are beautiful, smart, and fast.

This silver-bellied jewel of freshwater game fish can only survive in very clean water, has two hearts, and mates for life.

Its delicate mouth-watering pale pink meat can resurrect both your faith and palate.

Oh, holy trout!

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 Relais & Chateaux.

But pretty soon, the French Magnolia, a luxury movable 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.

We are deep in Appalachia in Southwest Virginia in the whisp of New Castle.

John Gurley, our field and stream expert, is here to give us a lesson on tying flies and fly fishing, and we are going to cook, eat, and learn about some great wine.

Ty Walker and his wife, Shannon, have taken on a life of all things trout.

Smoke In Chimneys is their story.

I hear Smoke In Chimneys is really a story about revival.

Tell me about your journey to come here, own the trout hatchery, and do this as a full-time business.

[Ty Walker] You know, our tagline for Smoke In Chimneys is "Farm, Food, Prayer", and it's really about a revival of each of those things.

You know, I've seen so many people give themselves to a farm when they personally are falling apart.

Like, that's not a healthy relationship between man, who's supposed to be steward, and the land.

And it's also a revival about a life of prayer, being connected to the Creator and the creation while being connected to the farm portion and the food portion.

Does that make sense?

-I love it.

-It's a culmination of all those things.

You'll notice there's no runoff coming up above the spring house here.

The spring and the water is all originating right here.

I mean, it's a true artesian spring.

[Chef Missy] I understand that you recently had some pretty advanced testing on this water.

[Ty Walker] One of the first things they tested for was all the different, like, microorganisms in the water, and, like, vertebrates and invertebrates, the health of the stream.

There's these little crustaceans that only live in really clean water, and they were saying that this is one of-- this spring here has one of the highest densities of these little crustaceans, so that's pretty cool.

Yeah, there's about 10,000 rainbow trout here.

[Chef Missy] Wow.

[Ty Walker] So, this will be all of next summer's harvest.

The trouts start off as eggs, and the eggs go into this jar for about a month.

The water comes down through here and it circulates the eggs.

And as they hatch, then you'll pour off the hatched eggs into these stainless-steel troughs here.

You see how the water's being forced down this, and it's coming up the sides.

So, if you imagine there's eggs in here, it's keeping-- it's emulating what the eggs do in a stream, which is tumble down the stream.

They're constantly being aerated.

-How did you learn how to do all this?

-Missy, to be honest with you, I've probably killed more fish than what I've raised.

-[Chef Missy laughs] -It's been a learning curve, like you wouldn't believe.

I bought a book on eBay that was written in the 1930s about trout, and I'm reading this book from the 1930s and everything he's saying is lining up to what I have here.

So, when he was writing this book, this place was in operation.

So, I used a lot of his methods and skills and-- It's all very primitive-type tools.

This is a very old system.

New hatcheries, you know, a lot of them are indoors.

They're recycling and filtering the water.

They're big indoor swimming pool aquaculture systems.

This is very bare bones, cast iron pipes.

Basically, it's more so of a water management facility as it is raising trout.

-[Chef Missy] Right.

[Ty Walker] You're just managing the water.

I'm able to provide for my family through the hatchery-raised fish, and I get to be there stewarding and conserving this habitat for the wild fish.

I mean, it's like the best of both worlds.

Thousands of gallons a minute, every minute all day, and, like, what is that a reminder of?

It's a reminder of the Father's law that is just continual.

It's endless.

-[Chef Missy] Never ends.

-[Ty Walker] Yeah.

This water reminds us of that, every day.

When we're hearing the sound of many waters, it's reminding us of the Father's voice.

-[Chef Missy] Hey, boss.

-Hey.

-So, these are some of the feathers from our pheasant hunt.

[John Gurley] For what we're going to do today, we're going to use this.

-[Chef Missy] Okay.

Okay, perfect.

-[John] So, I'll leave those-- You could put those in your hat.

-[Chef Missy] Okay.

Okay, John.

Why the fly?

-So, why the fly.

So, if entomology is the study of insects, the entomology of a trout stream is the study of the insects that the fish will eat.

And that will change from stream to stream.

It will change for the different seasons in the year because obviously there are different insects in the summer than there are in the fall and winter and the spring.

-[Chef Missy] Cool, cool.

-Yeah.

So, what we want to do is, we want to simulate what it is that the fish are eating in Meadow Creek today.

An aquatic insect starts as an egg, and then it becomes what is called a nymph.

And then, as it grows, it loses its exoskeleton, and it emerges to the top of the water where it sprouts wings and then becomes this.

You'll see the fish actually coming up and eating these off the top.

Then you've got an ant, for example-- -I didn't realize the ant lived such a dangerous life.

-An ant is at the bottom of the food chain.

-Okay.

The fact that it's June right now, does that change the kind of fly that you build, or what you're even going to use to catch the trout?

-It absolutely does.

-[Chef Missy] Okay.

-So, the entomological study of this stream would show that in the winter, you'd have a totally different insect than you would in the summer, and the insects that are surrounding the stream that might fall into it.

So, a trout will work together with its mate, and they will form what's called redds, and they'll use their tail, and they'll fan out a place in the rocks.

And the two of those will work as a team.

-That is super cool.

I love that.

So, will that be forever?

-They partner up until somebody gets caught.

When you're eating ants and grasshoppers, you're not wasting a lot of energy swimming all over the stream to eat.

So, they'll stay in what's called a lane, and they'll only eat-- the nymph's on the bottom right there, and they'll only eat off the top right in front of them.

Be like a trout.

-Stay in your own lane.

-We can learn a lot from a trout.

[♪♪♪♪♪] Bon appétit!

[♪♪♪♪♪] -You ready to learn to cast?

-I am.

These are pretty snazzy pants.

-Right.

You got it.

Wading shoes, and the wader goes on inside the shoe, so the wading shoes are not waterproof.

[Chef Missy] This is beautiful.

-[John Gurley] Thank you.

-[Chef Missy] Wow.

-When we cast, we want the line to unfold, and then fall to the water.

10:00, 02:00.

10:00, 02:00.

-Beautiful.

That was really good.

[John Gurley] Overcast is best.

-10:00, 2:00.

[John Gurley] There you go.

-It looks very simple.

It's super complicated and very hard.

And when are you pulling out the line, as you go by?

-We got the fly now.

This is the first fly we're going to try.

This is going to be a little top water fly.

-I look very slender in these.

-See that little bug right there.

[♪♪♪♪♪] You want to keep a wide stance.

Think about walking like this.

[♪♪♪♪♪] Careful, because this water's moving a little bit faster.

[Chef Missy] This water is moving fast.

[John Gurley] And it makes a difference.

[♪♪♪♪♪] [Chef Missy] Looks like-- Yes.

Oh.

-[John Gurley] Oh.

[♪♪♪♪♪] -[Chef Missy] Got it?

-[John Gurley] Got it.

[Chef Missy] Did you get it on?

Yay.

[John Gurley] [chuckles] It's a big deal.

[♪♪♪♪♪] [Chef Missy] [gasps] All right.

-Now look at that.

-It's a little baby.

[John Gurley] Look how pretty it is.

[Chef Missy] Beautiful.

Wow.

Look at those colors.

-[John Gurley] Is that beautiful or what?

-[Chef Missy] Oh, gorgeous.

[John Gurley] Every stream that you're on is unique in its own way, but they're all absolutely gorgeous.

[Chef Missy] There's a sense of something very powerful going on here that's so much bigger than all of us that are here today.

[John Gurley] You want to cut underneath here.

[Chef Missy] Okay.

[John Gurley] And cut the gills.

Okay, so now, you want to gut it.

The French Magnolia cleans fish, and you are doing a super job.

[♪♪♪♪♪] [Chef Missy] Fresh organic fennel, lemon, just super little thin slices, and fresh dill.

Smells like summer.

And I'm actually going to salt it sort of liberally, and then pepper.

Two... okay.

Flip it over on the other side.

Boom!

Okay.

We are back here in the French Magnolia culinary center.

And I've got my Smoke In Chimneys' gorgeous rainbow trout from Ty, and I really want to teach you guys the recipe of how to do this in your homes.

Super, super easy, and delicious.

The first thing we want to do is to preheat the oven to 400, and make sure that your oven rack is in the middle or slightly to the bottom of the oven.

One thing about seafood, you need to keep it in the refrigerator all the way until the last minute.

Fish and seafood loses a lot of its vitamins and minerals when it sits out.

So, we're going to work on this quickly.

Look at him.

So beautiful.

When you grill it, you lose a lot of that gorgeous rainbow color on the skin.

And, on the grill, no matter how much you oil it or spray it or whatever it is you're doing to keep it from being sticky, you're just inevitably going to lose a lot of the skin on the grill.

It just is the way it is.

The first thing I want to do is salt liberally.

I've got some really great high-quality sea salt right here, get the inside.

People make the mistake of not salting their fish enough.

The salt enhances the flavor, but it also keeps any kind of fish smell or fishy flavor from coming out.

So, I kind of over salt a little bit with this great sea salt... and a little pepper.

I love this black coarse pepper.

Great.

Like this.

So, I've got him.

I'm just going to set him aside for a second.

Fennel, lemon, salt and pepper, and fresh dill.

That's it.

Got my handy dandy mandoline.

I actually own a very expensive French mandoline that is fairly complicated to set up.

And I always prefer to use this 20-dollar mandoline that I got from the Asian supermarket.

Fennel... right in the inside.

A little dill... and then some lemon.

Slice nice and thin.

I'm going to save back the other half to use.

Make sure you get your little seeds out.

You don't want any of your guests to get a little seed.

Sometimes it happens, that's not a big deal.

But... try to get them out if you can.

Just kind of slice your lemon in there.

Lemon.

Lemon, fennel, dill, sea salt, and black pepper, organic extra virgin olive oil.

Now, you don't want to use a lot.

You're only doing this to keep the fish from sticking to the pan.

You want to get that skin good and crispy.

Now, I'm going to take a little bit of olive oil, just a tiny bit, and just drizzle a little bit on top.

Just give it a little more bit of salt... and a little bit more pepper.

You'll be happy about that pepper.

And then, squeeze a little bit of lemon on at the end... Beautiful.

Now, I'm holding back half my dill to finish the fish when you're ready to plate up.

You don't want to put any dill on it right now before it goes in the oven.

It will just wilt and get brown and, really not do anything.

Okay, it's ready for the oven.

Okay, it's been 25 minutes.

Woo, that is gorgeous.

This is exactly the way I want it to look.

Crispy skin, beautiful.

Perfectly cooked, I can tell.

You can see the rainbow color still.

Gorgeous.

Look at that.

I love it.

This is a fabulous fish spatula.

I would not be able to function without it.

It has a little sharp razor on the end.

If you don't have one, get one because it is a game changer.

Put that on the side right there.

Beautiful.

Oh, I love that.

And we've got an organic field pea and pickled okra salad that I made... with the vinaigrette.

Give it a little squirt of lemon here at the end.

Use that leftover dill.

Holy trout!

In your best-case scenario, your biggest prayer, your biggest vision, what is your dream and prayer for the legacy of this farm and all that you and your wife have done here, built here, developed here, revived here?

Tell me that vision.

-We actually have spent the past, like, four years working on a-- it's called the Spirit and Soil internship.

It's a three-month internship that teaches, like, practical farming skills, but it's in the context of, like, having a relationship like with the Creator.

We farmed-- we did a big internship in Oregon, and it was a lot of farm skills, but, like, there was no God element.

Farming, learning practical skills like milking cows, raising pigs, how to cure your own bacon, how to live how God intended, you know, like the original vocation of man, in the context of having a relationship with God.

So, we've written the curriculum, and we're, actually, by the end of the year, we're going to have it, like, published.

That's what we're working towards.

-[Chef Missy] Awesome.

-[Ty Walker] Yeah.

[Chef Missy] I love it.

Beautiful!

While I've been off cleaning and cooking trout, Tom has been setting the table, and as usual, he has some amazing French wines that he's going to tell us all about.

-Two different grapes, two different locations, inside the same place, in France.

They're both from a place in France called Loire.

Sauvignon Blanc is from a place inside Loire, a town called Sancerre.

Sancerre is pretty special.

This one is from a place called Vouvray.

All right?

This, the grape, is a Chenin Blanc.

It's not quite as mineral, forward, or acidic as the Sauvignon Blanc.

So, that's going to pair well with all the things that we're having, starting with the trout, to the salads and things like that.

-Is the Chenin and the Sauvignon Blanc-- are those grapes grown in the same valley?

-Well, there's the Loire Valley-- -[John Gurley] Right.

-Right?

Where it's the most fertile soil in all of France.

And then, you have some higher locations that has water runoff, which is great for grapes because that makes it work for water.

And as it goes through layers and layers of soil, you're going to get more character in the wine.

France is a craft environment, with a national product.

This is alive in the bottle because of the yeast.

And, you know, all that's going on is-- it's not a distilled beverage.

So, it's alive in the bottle still, okay.

So, when you drink this, you're looking at the year, like you just said, and you're thinking of the place, the time, the people that worked there, it's like drinking a time capsule.

-Cheers!

-[all] Cheers!

-I wish you a lot of great trout.

[Ty Walker] Really hyped it up.

I'm excited now.

-Great new friends.

-[Ty Walker] Yeah.

-Hopefully, forever.

-[Ty Walker] Absolutely.

Lord, we just thank you for today.

We just speak a blessing.

We're just over this time, over this space.

We just thank you for this food, Lord.

We just thank you for how you provide for us every day.

We just give you all the honor and the glory, and the praise.

We just bless this food, Lord, in Jesus' name, Amen.

[Chef Missy] Amen.

[John Gurley] To the French Magnolia, Missy.

Thank you for everything, and for the preparation of this beautiful meal, and for the introduction to new wonderful friends, and the opportunity for us all to gather together with the kids and Thomas for their unbelievable wine, and thank all of y'all for everything that you've blessed us with today, and the experience that we've had here.

Here's to a long, wonderful friendship.

[Chef Missy] Revival means to live again, or to resuscitate the heart of something or someone.

Smoke In Chimneys is more than a revived trout hatchery or farm.

It's a return to consciousness.

It's an act of obedience and stewardship.

We can learn a lot from the trout.

Stay in your own lane.

Don't be lured by shiny objects.

Know when to keep your mouth shut.

And don't give up without a fight.

But most of all, cherish clean water.

Security is found in re-participating in the affairs of the Earth and stewarding nature.

Nourishing, never-ending, all-consuming, living water represents the heart of our Creator, and the ultimate gift that secures life forever.

Living water causes us to flourish because what we have flows from truth and a heart redeemed.

[♪♪♪♪♪] [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.