Spring 2008 issue of Terry Magazine - (Page 35)

Still, their careers proved problematic. After graduation, Davis offices — and, for CEO Gena’s benefit, test kitchens. “It’s going to be our R&D department,” says chief financial moved to Colorado to work as retail manager for a fly-fishing firm. officer Davis. Oh yes, and Gena has partnered with a former Food Eventually, Gena followed. In Colorado, Gena tried her first entreNetwork producer to self-publish a cookbook, Gourmet Made preneurial venture, Gena’s Gourmet, which she marketed to local farmer’s markets. When Davis returned to Atlanta in 2000 to work Simple (due out in April). Despite the shoestring start, “I had a great deal of confidence in for Air Serv, Gena stayed on to take a culinary program in Aspen, them,” says Davis’ father, Wyck Knox (BBA ’62, LLB ’64), an attor- and when she returned to Georgia, it was to St. Simons, where she ney at Kilpatrick Stockton, who still advises the couple on business took a job as Sea Island Resort’s only female landscape architect. issues. “They’re fearless,” says Davis’ mother, Shell Hardman Knox Davis had had enough of the distance between them: “I had to (BSEd ’66), a former UGA trustee. “They see the world as their marry her to get her in the same city with me,” he says. “I loved being outside, and designing people’s yards,” Gena says oyster. I knew anything they did would be successful.” Another parent — Gena’s mother, Joan Rogers Neely (BSHE ’68) of her Sea Island experience. “But there wasn’t a job on St. Simons — instilled her daughter’s passion for cooking early on. Growing up for Davis, unless he wanted to be a bartender or waiter.” They wed in Reynolds, and later Perry, Ga., Gena started helping out in her in Americus, in September 2002. Fire & Flavor was born of one of Gena’s cooking experiments. mother’s catering business (Catering Delights), doing weddings and “I saw an article in Cooking Light about grilling on cedar planks,” small receptions all over middle Georgia . . . at the age of 8. “Mom would leave a list of things I could do — make a mari- she says, “and I thought it would be fun to try it.” Getting the nade, slice lemons,” says Gena. “I learned things like ‘serve from the planks, however, took some clicking around. She went online and found one small firm in Oregon that would send a two-pack for left, take up from the right,’ right out of the chute.” If Fire & Flavor seems a business match made in heaven, with $20. Cedar-plank grilling, especially of salmon, is now fairly comGena’s cooking concepts and Davis’s business savvy, the romance monplace in restaurants even on the East Coast, but it’s a more didn’t instantly ignite. However, Davis had certainly learned to pay popular regional technique in the Pacific Northwest, where Indians attention when opportunity knocks, and in his senior year at UGA, are thought to have originated it. “It’s kind of like grits in the South,” says Gena. it did, when Gena arrived at his Alps Road doorstep — with his The method’s hallmarks are moist, flavorful meats and vegetables, landlord, looking for a house to rent. Through mutual friends, he infused with smoke and subtle wood flavor. (While salmon is most engineered a get-together. “We had the nicest date,” says Gena. “His mother had taught often associated with cedar-grilling, you can use almost anything, him well — he was so well-mannered. But at the time, I just wasn’t from steaks to chicken to pork chops to Portobello mushrooms; interested.” (Translation: Too nice.) Two years elapsed, and at a maple and alder planks also impart unique, understated flavors, marfootball game, Gena spotted a familiar face that she Fire & Flavor was born of Gena’s cooking experiments. She saw an article in Cooking Light about couldn’t quite place. When friends told her it was Davis, grilling on cedar planks and thought it would be fun to try. But she had trouble finding them. Cedar-plank grilling, especially of salmon (see photo, above right), is now fairly common in East she decided to go over to say hello. They’ve been talkCoast restaurants. But it’s more popular in the Pacific Northwest, where Indians are thought to have originated it. Gena found her initial supply of grilling planks at a small firm in Oregon. ing ever since. Terry College of BuSineSS Spring 2008 • 35

Table of Contents Feed for the Digital Edition of Terry School of Business - Spring 2008

Terry School of Business - Spring 2008 Contents Quick Bites Research & Innovation Gatherings Best CEO in America An Unlikely Rock Star Fire & Flavor Beyond the Bench Terry Memo Economic Scorekeeper Class Notes

Terry School of Business - Spring 2008

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