THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1994, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Wednesday, October 19, 1994 TAG: 9410180113
SECTION: ISLE OF WIGHT CITIZEN PAGE: 02 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: Linda McNatt
LENGTH: Long : 103 lines
He said the magic words.
All it took was a quick stop by the tiny diner across the street from the Isle of Wight Courthouse, and the wonderful man about to re-open what had become a favorite place to eat among the county crowd gave me the scoop of the decade.
Hold on to your hats.
Are you ready for this?
The words: collard greens.
Don Kennell, an out-of-the-ordinarily friendly Yankee originally from upstate New York, told me he plans to feature collard greens on the Courthouse Diner's new menu.
Judging by the look on his face, he must have been a little overwhelmed by my reaction.
I could feel my eyes growing wide, my own face breaking into an expression of pure joy and my mouth beginning to salivate.
``Collard greens?'' I asked, to make sure I'd heard him correctly.
``Yeah,'' he said, nodding his head and backing off just a little.
I asked him if he knew that his restaurant could be the only one in Isle of Wight County - and there are plenty of good ones - with the necessary degree of fortitude to cook and serve those dew-kissed, emerald-colored jewels of Southern soil.
``Yeah?'' he said, his own eyes growing wider.
Gee, I hope I didn't scare him off.
Even though his name's not ``Mel,'' Kennell has been dreaming for years about opening a small diner. He loves to cook. Always has.
Kennell grew up in New York in a family of six children. He and all of his siblings shared household duties, he said, because his mother worked. They rotated among washing, cooking and cleaning. Cooking was his favorite chore.
And he was always much more versatile in his cooking skills than one brother, who served nothing but spaghetti.
``My mom sure got tired of eating spaghetti every night,'' he said.
Kennell met and married a Smithfield native, Frances Richards, when they both were serving in the Marine Corps. Then, for years, he made a career of working with handicapped people.
But he got burned out on that, talked with his wife and decided to go back to school for a degree in food service. OK, she said, but there was a catch: When he was ready to settle into his new career, she wanted it to be in Smithfield. She wanted to come home.
Well, that was fine with Kennell, since his first memory of falling in love, after his wife, was with her mother's candied yams.
``It was the first time I ever had dinner with them. Her mother served these sweet potatoes, and they were great. I told her the only time we ever got sweet potatoes back home was when we got them from a can.''
He later learned his mother-in-law's potatoes also were canned, but she had touched them with Southern magic - sometimes called brown sugar, butter and other good stuff.
What it all amounted to was that Kennell was sold on Southern cuisine long before he ever started training in food service management. And when he finished training, he agreed to settle in the South.
For nearly six years, he worked as chief cook at Howmet Corp. in Newport News, a company with a cafeteria serving about 500 employees daily. There, Kennell said, he tried to serve what the workers liked to eat, things like chili and homemade soups, fried chicken, chicken pot pie. Modestly, he admitted he was rather famous for his blueberry muffins.
And yes, dear Lord, he served collard greens. Say it again: collard greens.
When I told him that when I worked in Suffolk there was only one place with collards on the menu, he was surprised.
Just the thought of my good friend Girlyn Felton's version of the greens at Floyd's Grill makes my mouth water even now.
When I told a lady who stopped by the office soon after I talked with Kennell the news, she said she couldn't wait to tell her husband.
``All he's been talking about is collards,'' she said. ``Must be the weather.''
She's right. The first nip in the night air brings on the longing.
Kennell has all kinds of wonderful plans for his small diner that has been a dream for so long. He likes to bake homemade desserts, bread pudding and pies. He likes to know that he's pleasing folks.
He certainly has a captive audience. The diner opened a couple of years ago, and because it's the only place within several miles for local government workers to get a meal, it soon became quite popular.
When the former owner decided diners weren't his cup of tea, it closed a couple of months ago. Kennell took over Oct. 1. The diner re-opened Monday. No more cold sandwiches at the courthouse.
A co-worker tipped me off that the restaurant was under new management. She talked about what a friendly sort Kennell is. He has a real, down-home, soft-spoken personality.
I mean - well, I really like the man. And yes, I admit it, the collard greens have probably cemented a long friendship.
The Courthouse Diner is on U.S. 258, directly across from the Isle of Wight Courthouse. It's small. Get in line.
Did I ever tell you about my grandmother who ate nothing but sweet potatoes? Four kids. Lived to be 86. She was never in the hospital until she was 81. Never. Seldom saw a doctor.
But that's another story. ILLUSTRATION: Photo by LINDA McNATT
Don Kennell, owner and cook of the newly re-opened Courthouse Diner,
will feature Southern cuisine, including collard greens.
by CNB