ERIK MEADOWS PRO TOOLS: Renowned Southern chef and cookbook author Virigina Willis’ trusty knife bag RECEIPT

Cabbage: $1.20

Collard greens: $2

Lemons: 50 cents

Chicken breast: $7.67

Peaches: $1.20

Ginger: 50 cents

Garlic: 63 cents

Buttermilk: 55 cents*

Greek yogurt: $1.49

Confectioners sugar: 27 cents**

Strawberries: $3.99

Total: $20 6.9 cents per ounce 17.9 cents per ounce



Pantry items: Olive oil, salt, pepper, rice, onions, flour, sugar, baking powder, baking soda, butter, vanilla extract

When you've written five cookbooks, graduated from two world-class culinary schools, worked with food professionally for more than 20 years, and your former bosses include people like Martha Stewart and Bobby Flay, people tend to ask you a lot of questions. They ask for recipes, they ask for interviews, they ask for cooking and entertaining advice, they ask you to speak or cook (or both) at their fancy events. Food writer, chef, and renowned cookbook author Virginia Willis gets these kinds of questions all the time. But because she was born and raised in the South, there's one question Willis is asked more often than any other: What is Southern food?

"I always reply that Southern food is agrarian-based cuisine," she says. "We have a 12-month growing season, so I feel like it's very dependent on agriculture. And then the other thing that I say is that Southern food, by and large, is a cuisine that was born out of poverty."

At a time when Southern culture is fetishized from sea to shining sea, the South's inherent diversity, depth, and nuance often get lost in translation. Just look at most reality television shows set in the region, Willis says. "I would love there to be one TV show about the South that didn't require subtitles. I mean, my gosh, seriously. Every show has got a subtitle. We're educated people, you know!"

For the Georgia-born chef, the over-simplification of Southern culture is frustrating; its modern portrayal — our seemingly hereditary devotion to deep-frying, for example — is almost cartoon-like.

"We eat more than pork. The South is more than fried chicken. And I've never had deep-fried macaroni and cheese wrapped in bacon in my life," Willis says. "There is a lot of fried, sure. It's not all misrepresentation. It's the truth, but it's not the only truth."

Today, Willis will attempt to make $20 Dinner history by creating a meal big enough to feed four and that's composed of items procured from the notoriously pricey grocery store Whole Foods, for 20 bucks or less. She's decided to build a menu around fresh, nourishing ingredients: a chilled collard green salad with sweet onion, braised cabbage spiked with red pepper flakes, herb-peach chicken served over brown rice pilaf, and brown sugar-strawberry shortcake for dessert. It's an ambitious plan, and, to be fair, one whose success relies on having a pantry routinely stocked with essentials like baking powder, vanilla extract, and basic aromatics.

Inside Willis' cozy Vinings townhome white space isn't really a thing. The walls are packed with funky folk art pieces, such as a seven-foot-long Greyhound cutout or a framed family tree illustrating the evolution of cookbooks. In Willis' galley kitchen, a faded cupboard door hangs on the wall. Her grandmother, she explains, used to tape up recipes on the inside of her cabinet for easy access. Eventually she started transcribing them directly onto the wood.

Willis ties an apron around her waist and prepares her workspace, a butcher block-topped island on wheels. Unrolling a distressed leather knife bag, she reveals her tools. There is a chef's knife and a serrated knife, a sharpening steel, a can opener, a thermometer, tweezers, and a wine tool. "And I can't really go anywhere without a microplane, a whisk, a spoon — and band-aids," she says with a laugh.