Jackson Free Press

Aven Whittington's can-do attitude personifies these Johnny Mercer lyrics: "You've got to accentuate the positive, eliminate the negative, latch onto the affirmative, and don't mess with Mister-In-Between."

"I truly feel like the luckiest guy in the world—I love my job, my beautiful wife. I play a lot of rock'n'roll in a local band, The Moils," the Greenwood-born Whittington, 30, said, telling me with pride that he plays anything with strings. His dad, a Delta farmer, taught him to play strings and how to to do labors on the farm. His dad called some of them, those particularly difficult in the steaming Delta sun, character builders because they had to be done and they had to be done right.

Whittington moved to Jackson with his mom at 17, graduated from Northwest Rankin at '93, attended Ole Miss for a while. Oxford is where he found his career —the food business. "I fell in love with the restaurant lifestyle and stayed," he told me, a wide smile spreading across his face, his green eyes crinkling and sparkling.

For almost eight years, Whittington has been catering coordinator for Bravo! and Broad Street. "Catering is about meeting others needs; it's more than food—it's organizing an event, helping the customer see how people will react to what's planned, to make it fun and positive."

That's where the character builders have paid off, that and the talented people he works with—his partner Cathy Cotton, pastry chef Dani Mitchell, chefs Louis LaRose, Charles Jefferson, Michael Thomas, and their crews. It's all about what Whittington called "high food"—quality that's maintained from the box lunch through the multi-course sit-down dinner.

When talking about his home state, Whittington's "I love Mississippi" came tumbling out, followed quickly by, "Most of my friends moved off, but I never had the inkling to." He loves the cultural diversity, the food, the music—even the weather. And as far as Jackson goes, Whittington's amazement at all of the things to do in town is obvious in his can-you-believe-it expression as he talks about the art, the music, the restaurants right here in the capitol city. He just wishes more would appreciate what's here.

"I have no patience with 'I can't'—if you have enough will, you can get anything done," Whittington said as he got ready to go home to read up about having babies and being a parent.