In Savannah: Cooking on the Front Burner

By Gregory Jaynes

Working title: Toward an Orderly Resolution of a Mid-Life Dilemma.

Part I: the make-it-yourself-with-wool contest; France; nuptials; food and wine.

She grew up in Salem, Ohio, not having much save a spit-in-your-eye disposition. She attended a high school that strove to provide a calling, as well as an education. From a rack of meager choices, she selected a clothing major, and when she was a junior she won the local, state and national make- it-yourself-with-wool contest with a suit symmetrically superior to the competition.

On the Art Linkletter show, they announced her grand prize: a trip to Europe to see the fashion houses. She went to France, drank wine, ate well, saw the Folies-Bergere. It broadened her, and later, when men came into her life, she found them "drippy" for all their narrow interests, to say nothing of the feeling she had that none was the sort to take her back to Europe.

He grew up in Flint, Mich., quite well-off and bright to boot. He was out of the chute and headed for Harvard Law by the time they wed in 1966, just after she graduated from college with a vague notion of doing social work. Unpacking at Cambridge, they switched on a hand-me-down TV and discovered Julia Child, whose cooking show came to anchor their weeks.

Now Michael Terry, the husband, had a stomach that was important to him, and Elizabeth Terry, the wife, had a way of doing things perfectly or not at all. "I had this do-it-right complex left over from the wool business," she says. "And I got into the food thing because Michael was so positive about it. And it was really neat. You read these recipes, and it was like making a sand castle or doing a chemistry project. To do it right, it had to look exactly like its picture in the cookbook."

Except for one failure with quenelles ("I got the water too hot") and another with a seven-layer torte ("the texture was wrong"), everything she set a hand to precisely matched its published image. The praise from dinner guests was heady, very heady.

Part II: lawyering down South; hosting; parenthood; and a little deli in the mall.

Michael was in the catbird seat for job choices, and through a network of friends he picked Atlanta and legal services for the poor. Elizabeth threw herself into expanding her cooking skills. They spent their money on art, food and wine. They found dinner parties, with the right mix of wits, a favorite form of entertainment. Michael loved "doing the wines," as he called it, and Elizabeth adored "orchestrating as much as possible beforehand, so that I could zip into the kitchen at the last minute without missing much of the conversation."

And like most of those new to adulthood, they stumbled in the beginning over distilled spirits. Out would come the whisky, the bons mots would fly, and the dinner hour would retreat. This bibulous behavior ceased one night after Michael heard a crash in the kitchen at 10:30 -- dinner yet to be served -- and found Elizabeth on her knees trying to salvage the salad. Soberly then, they matured together, washing dishes after their parties, discussing their evenings.

For the next few years life slid along rather pleasantly. A daughter, Alexis, was born in 1973. Michael became legal counsel to the city of Atlanta, flirted with local politics, got out without losing his shirt. Elizabeth gave lectures on her culinary findings and in 1977 opened a little deli, Thyme for You, in a shopping mall. Her homemade soups and sandwiches were a smash. She made "20 grand real quick," and then "all of a sudden it occurred to me: This is me! This is it!" It lasted two years, until the wine-and-cheese shop from which she rented space closed.

A second daughter, Celeste, was due in March 1980. It seemed time to take stock. "Why Atlanta?" asked Michael. They had two years' running money, they figured. "We are very simple livers," Elizabeth reckoned. "I can make do with a cabbage, a chicken, some leeks. We could live on very little. I mean, I don't use makeup. We don't do drugs."

Part III: the restaurant; heartbreak; sudden acclaim.

They had visited Savannah many times, beguiled by its aged squares and majestic live oaks. They bought a shabby mansion for $150,000, the mortgage, as well as a Small Business Administration loan, going in Elizabeth's name. Explaining the absence of her husband's name from the documents, Elizabeth says, "When women decide to do something, make a career, it ought to, well, it ought to be fair." For Michael's part, he was going to devote a year to getting Elizabeth's restaurant on its feet on the ground floor and getting their living quarters organized on the second floor.

Elizabeth on 37th opened in May 1981. "The first two years about killed us," the chef recalls. Understaffed, they had to stay up all night cooking. Once the electricity went off, and Elizabeth had to "cook by ear" on her six burners. Twice, after she had cooked 70 or 80 dinners, Michael stuck his head into the kitchen and announced "25 more," and Elizabeth broke down and cried. It is not like that anymore.

She has twelve burners now and a staff of 20, not including the host-wine steward, Michael, who never did return to law. Everything this brigade de cuisine turns out is a la minute. If you do not know what that means, it means no microwave. She characterizes it as Southern American cooking with a Continental influence. If you do not know what that means, it means no heavily floured sauces on the fish, no gooey jambalaya -- Elizabeth heats no ingredient before its time -- and a pecan pie that does not render the consumer immobile.

A copy of Food & Wine magazine came in the mail the other day, trumpeting 25 of the hottest new chefs in America. Elizabeth was one. Town & Country dropped through the slot a few days later, heralding the best women chefs in America. Elizabeth was one. And the local paper took a poll that showed Elizabeth on 37th the favorite restaurant in Savannah.

Nowadays the place is closed the month of August. The proprietors go to Europe.