A Tribute to Nathalie Dupree

James Beard Award-winning chef, author, and television personality Nathalie Dupree died on Monday in Raleigh, North Carolina, at 85. Dupree was an icon in Southern cooking, championing female chefs throughout the region, including Virginia Willis, who pens this heartfelt tribute letter to her.

Dear Nathalie,

It’s been just over three decades since I presented you with soggy meringues as an unpaid apprentice. Daunted by failure, I listened to you patiently explain, “Well, sweet pea, it’s not your fault. You can’t make meringue when it’s raining.” I’d never tested a recipe in my life, and I remember my extreme disappointment when you returned my testing sheets peppered with questions and recipes dripping with the blood-red ink of your editor’s pen.

Virginia Willis

Now, what I wouldn’t do to clean up one of your flour explosions off a freshly mopped kitchen floor or tidy up yet another empty can of your caffeine-free diet Coke.

You took me out of my mother’s kitchen and exposed me to things I had hardly heard, much less cooked. I arrived at the studio as a 25-year-old girl who knew how to make biscuits but not brioche. Even from a family of avid cooks, the pie crusts I knew were the kind that started in an aluminum tin, not a measuring cup. My people cooked in cast iron, not Le Creuset. I was a scared, hardworking, novice thirsting for knowledge, and you fed me.

You seemed larger than life, a bona fide celebrity chef in the days when public television was the only culinary programming available, long before Food Network. I’d watched you make simple pork chops to cheese souffle, clothed in your floral aprons with your hair perfectly coiffed, wearing your signature pearls. I was equally terrified and in awe, having no idea you would eventually become one of the most important people in my life.

Virginia Willis

You called us your chickens. You took us all under your wing and shared your knowledge and life lessons freely. Like your now-famed Pork Chop Theory: “If there is only one pork chop in the pan, it goes dry; if there are two or more, the fat from one feeds the other.” We understood it was a metaphor for managing jealousy, how to work with others, and developing mutually beneficial partnerships. Moreover, after a long day in your kitchen, you sent me to volunteer at chef events, not only for the experience but also for networking. “Always raise your hand,” you said. “Volunteer for everything you can, get yourself out there.”

You sent me off to culinary school L’Academie de Cuisine in D.C., insisting the smaller school would suit me better. I remember calling you excited about my test scores and consulting on recipe ideas for my final practical exam. (I also remember you calling me to ask how to work the microwave.) When I returned to become your test kitchen director, our heads started to bump more often. I remember when the famed French chef Roger Vergé of 3-star Michelin restaurant Moulin de Mougins visited your home. I proposed a fanciful French meal. You, instead, wanted to share the food of the South — fried catfish and cheese grits, I remember. I didn’t get it then, thinking you doubted my ability, but I get it now.

You guided my professional life, including how to be a woman in a man’s world. “You need to go to France,” you said, and shipped me off to Ecole de Cuisine LaVarenne to apprentice with the authority on French cooking and founder of the school, Anne Willan. When I returned stateside, I managed the TV kitchen of Bobby Flay in New York and then worked at Martha Stewart Living because of my experience with you. Confronted with the realization my male sous chef was getting paid more than me, you taught me how to handle it. I walked into the executive producer’s office and walked out with a $10,000 raise.

We kept up year after year, and we became friends. Our tour across Texas teaching cooking classes together for Central Market and eating tacos and barbecue at roadside stands was a hoot — an experience I call, “driving Ms. Dupree.” Yet for over half my life, you have never stopped guiding me, even when I saw you for the last time only a few months ago.

Clay Williams

I know you love-hate Pat Conroy’s quote that states you were “more like a fictional character than a flesh and blood person.” It still makes me howl with laughter. But it’s not because you puttered about uttering epithets like, “Do as I say, not as I do” or “Oops, I dropped my diamond,” when you broke a bowl. It’s because it’s impossible to imagine that anyone could truly be as generous and loving as a real-life person.

Oh, my sweet friend, you will always live in my heart as my friend and mentor. I will always strive to be the cook you knew I could be. I will endeavor to be the leader you were. I will do as you would expect me to do. Of all my accolades, honors, and awards, my greatest honor in all of my career is that I was one of your flock, one of your chickens.

Much love always and forever,
Virginia

Virginia Willis is a chef and James Beard Award-winning cookbook author, content creator, culinary producer, and motivational speaker. The late Nathalie Dupree was her mentor for over three decades.