Issue link: https://www.e-digitaleditions.com/i/724773
3 8 | t h e c l e v e r r o o t DECONSTRUCTING DISHES PHOTO: KELLY FORDHAM PHOTO: KELLY FORDHAM Executive Chef Steven Devereaux Greene of Herons Restaurant at The Umstead Hotel & Spa in Cary, North Carolina. AT HERONS IN CARY, NORTH CAROLINA by Merrill Shindler Southern HERITAGE Chef Green's 62 Degree Egg. Executive Chef Steven Devereaux Greene was born and raised in the town of Ninety Six, South Carolina, which has a population of about 2,000—and a name that's a mystery. (Wikipedia devotes a sizable paragraph to the several theo- ries, without resolving it.) But there's no mystery about Chef Greene's cooking at Herons Restaurant at The Umstead Hotel & Spa in Cary, North Carolina, about ten miles from Ra- leigh. His cuisine is both regional and modern, farm-to-table without being doctrinaire; his chickens may be local, but foie gras has to travel, as do so many of the diners at Herons, for as a James Beard finalist, his cooking is revered by those needing a break from whole-hog barbecue. In this case, the pork is served with rhubarb, lambic cabbage, turnips, pickled onions and the essence of sour beer. What Chef Greene also does is answer the venerable question of which came first, the chicken or the egg. On this menu, the egg comes before the chick- en—and both are distinctly his.