SOUTHERN HOMESCAPES MAGAZINE

What's for Thanksgiving?

BY DON VARNADOE

There are many stories about what could have been the first Thanksgiving and where it happened and what foods were used in those celebrations. To give us direction, the United States Congress in 1941 established Thanksgiving to occur annually on the fourth Thursday of November.

Usually, we think of the celebration that the Pilgrims and Indians had as the first Thanksgiving and we think of turkey as part of the food. Historians indicate that turkey, as we know it, was not a part of that celebration. However, traditionally we seem to think of turkey as the leading meat for the annual feast of thanks.

If you are looking for a change, Barbara Barta of Barbara Jean's Restaurants has some suggestions and they are all great! How about crab cakes or pork loin and some She Crab soup? Well, your next thought should be, where do I get these items or how do I make them? The answer is easy.

So that you can enjoy the day, Barbara, her husband, Jim, and their Southern-trained staff will help you. Their restaurant will be open from 11 a.m. to 9 p.m. to serve you, or you can call in for a "pick up," or some items can be ordered online at www.barbarajeans.com and be prepared at home. Barbara is so dedicated to her customers that she has turned her family Thanksgiving over to her daughter, Lisa. To go along with her big meal, Lisa makes cranberry-orange sauce and bakes cranberry nut bread.

The Thanksgiving menu at Barbara Jean's will offer roasted turkey breast and pork loin roast with a special apple-rosemary sauce to go with the cornbread dressing and fresh vegetables. Dessert will be peach cobbler- Yum Yum!! Now if you are still looking for something different and passed on the crab cakes and She Crab soup, how about the coconut fried shrimp and some chocolate stuff? As always, there will be freshly baked pumpkin bread, homemade wheat rolls, and sweet jalapeño corn bread.

Since Barbara, Jim and their family opened their restaurant on St. Simons Island, Georgia, in 1998, they have made a great name for themselves as they feed the hungry locals and visitors. If anyone is looking for a great place to eat in the Village, they are told to look for the crowd on the corner waiting to get inside. The family now has six restaurants, three of which are in our area and have a booming online business that ships overnight. Barbara emphasizes that her signature crab cakes are fresh and never frozen.

As a thank you to many hardworking people who have to toil on Thanksgiving Day, Barbara Jean's gives a card to employees at St. Simons' hotels where there is no restaurant for a complimentary Thanksgiving dinner. Most of them pick up the dinner, so even if they can't be with their families, they still have a great meal on that special day of thanks.

Because everyone can't make it to one of their restaurants, and Barbara and Jim can't place everything on the menu, she was encouraged to write a cookbook. She did and can you guess the title-Barbara Jean's Cookbook! She declares that she has gotten to where she is with "lots of hard work and creativity. And by the way, I'm not a chef. I'm a cook. A really good cook." The hardback book is almost 200 pages of "mouth-watering" recipes, wonderful color pictures and neat stories. It too is available online.

If you are fortunate enough to eat some of Barbara's food, you will agree that she is a "really good cook"! Enjoy and Happy Thanksgiving!