Knox is a native of a small town in South Georgia. She started helping her mother in the kitchen at a young age. She grew up cooking with fruits and vegetables out of the family’s garden, or from local farms and farmers. Home cooking was the norm for the area. “Southern My Way” is her answer to her upbringing: a compilation of traditional Southern dishes updated with a lighter, healthier approach with a focus on using local ingredients. In fact, cleverly interspersed throughout the book are one to two page breakaways that highlight a local artisan, farmer, or purveyor like for instance the pages on Ted Dennard’s Savannah Bee Company, a small artisan honey company. As I read through the book I liked more and more that Knox was hitting all the 100 miles touchstones.
I met Sara a few years ago in the Bahamas and quickly discovered she is the kind of person everyone knows. As the owner of
This review comes with instructions: #1. Buy the book. #2. Turn to page 112. #3. Make the recipe “Slow Cooker Pot Roast.” Now, to be as un-journalistic as I can be: OMG! If you like pot roast you’ll love this recipe. It is so easy to make (as long as you own a slow cooker), and the end result is a truly magnificent braised meal. Perfect for the winter months. The recipe worked to a ‘T.’ The beauty of this dish for me? All I had to to do was buy the boneless chuck roast ($13.47 at Whole Foods). Happily, I already had the onions, carrots and potatoes from my C.S.A. More beauty? I managed to get three meals from one roast. All the recipes I tried from 
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is all about the "something extra special." Each recipe has a simple
component--like the seared trout, and an optional brilliant
flourish--like the topping of smoked trout salad. It's what makes this
cookbook a real keeper (even if you have other Southern cookbooks). The
recipes are fresh and modern and reflect both Virginia's Southern roots
and her French training so you'll find recipes like Savory Monkey Bread,
Coca Cola Cake and Creole Country Bouillabaisse.