Editor’s Note: Dottie’s Market recently announced its closing, as reported by Jesse Blanco’s Eat It & Like It. This column provides one former employee’s fond memories of his time there. Chris Underwood describes himself as a Fayette County native who once happened upon a used copy of Kitchen Confidential while picking up his 9th grade summer reading at the Omega Bookstore. He enjoys going to the Forsyth Farmer’s Market and buying fresh ingredients for delicious meals he posts to his Facebook page.
By Chris Underwood
May 4, 2025 – I always wanted to cook. Ever since childhood food was more than physical sustenance. Whether it was heavily spiced enchiladas moles in a Peachtree City shopping center on mariachi night, fresh pasta swimming in red bell pepper sauce on Philadelphia’s riverfront before spinal fusion surgery, or my grandmother’s chicken and dumplings after a two-week hospital stay – a well-made meal could inspire laughter, ease anxiety and provide relief. Throughout an interrupted and long college experience, living in apartments with kitchens not designed for wheelchairs, I lost touch with the act of cooking. Uncertain about graduating with an English degree in a COVID economy, I became prone to thoughts of self-doubt and panicked that the isolation would never end.
But as the city awoke from the lockdown and my kitchen was adapted for my needs, I started going to the Forsyth Farmers’ Market every Saturday, stocking up on ingredients to cook meals maybe more involved than advisable for my small kitchen. I wanted to work more, to help put more food on plates. My wheelchair, though, led chefs to turn me down, doubtful of my ability to move around in their tight-quartered kitchens. Chef Chris Meenan of Dottie’s Market was the first guy to tell me that “we’ll figure it out.”
And we did. On my first prep day, Chef set up two of outdoor tables in a spot next to the kitchen and showed me how to use prep towels to stabilize the plastic cutting boards so they wouldn’t slide as I peeled cooled boiled eggs, separating the whites and yolks, to be deviled later for salads and bread boards. As soon as that task was complete, another needed to be done. Either Chef – working in the kitchen or on his laptop at the bar – or Zay – boning out whole hams for grinding into breakfast sausage – brought me 20-liter containers of water to prevent oxidation of the palm-sized yellow potatoes I cut for potato salad. At times, as I worked on tasks with ingredients new to me, like cleaning frisee before soaking it in ice water to preserve its structure, I’d apologize to Chef for my self-perceived slowness. All he said back was “What are you talking about?”
I loved the constant movement and the sensory stimulation. From the time Lauren, the lead morning line cook, let me in at the start of my shift, none of us stopped. I grabbed sheet pans from below the oven and oil from the rack above the stove before halving plum tomatoes Lauren brought out to my station as she regaled me with stories of her time working with Chef Chris at the Drayton Hotel. She often brought me a sheet of blackened tomatoes to peel while she made the cheesy bechamel sauce for the macaroni. I reserved the skins in deli quart containers to make chicken stock, before putting them back on a drying rack and returning them to the oven to dry for topping sandwiches and blending into gumbo. As I diced cases of onions and red bell peppers, and Zamara made pesto, the scent of basil filled the air. The whir of the food processor added a layer of sound on top of the music of Soundgarden, Mary J Blige, or whatever else we put on that day.
I knew all the processes for making the tastiest breakfasts and lunches served in Savannah, but was astounded by the flavors of the tasting dinners I was fortunate enough to experience. Tomatoes bathed in wood smoke were crushed and pushed through a strainer to make the most pleasant pea salad dressing I’ve ever tasted; ginger snap cookies, crumbled and whisked into pork gravy, perfectly complemented a locally sourced whole roasted pig. At one dinner, Chef told me about his time working in New Orleans alongside Paul Prudhomme, who worked the line in a wheelchair during his later years. He told stories like this one to show me that, despite my physical limitations, food could be a way of life.
At the end of some prep days, as I went through the restaurant’s door onto the sidewalk, I’d hear a passing tourist remark on the prices while examining the menu. Slightly higher than those at establishments where the food arrives frozen in a bag to be reheated, they had no idea.
Without a work kitchen for the moment, I’ll look for kitchen work elsewhere to keep myself occupied as I work on building my own establishment – something I previously never thought possible. Dottie’s changed it all.
Chris’s recipe for Creamy Mustard Chicken (English for “Poulet a Moutarde”)
Ingredients:
2.25 pounds chicken legs
4 shallots, thinly sliced
5 cloves of garlic, minced
6 thyme sprigs
1/8 cup chopped flat leaf parsley
2.5 tablespoons Dijon mustard (I like Grey Poupon)
3 tablespoons crème fraiche (I can never find crème fraiche in the store, so I make it by
combining 2 cups cream and 3 tablespoons of buttermilk in a jar, covering, shaking to
combine, and letting sit at room temperature for 36 hours. I’m sure other people have
more patience for shopping.)
3 cups chicken stock, preferably homemade
Method:
Get the chicken legs out of the refrigerator and let them sit out for 15 minutes or so,
enough to get the chill off of them. Season all over with kosher salt and freshly cracked
black pepper. Brown on all sides in a medium-high heat mixture of 2 tablespoons
grapeseed oil (any neutral oil, like canola or avocado will do) and 2 tablespoons butter.
Remove the legs and take the Dutch oven off the heat for a couple minutes. Turn the
stove heat down to medium-low and cook the shallots and garlic for a couple minutes,
until soft and colored (not dark brown, though). Put the legs back in the pot, cover with
chicken stock, add the thyme and parsley. Simmer for two hours. Remove the legs and
pull the meat using two forks. Add it back to the pot. Stir in the mustard and crème
fraiche. Serve over brown rice pilaf. Garnish with more chopped parsley, if desired.
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