I have a passion for sustainable seafood, and it’s been both an important subject here on the show and the subject of many of my written pieces throughout the years. When I first interviewed Sammy Monsour in 2020, I discovered that we shared this passion, and I’ve watched as he has really blossomed into a chef leader on this front. Therefore, when I first heard that he and Kassady Wiggins, his wife and beverage director partner, wanted to write a cookbook about Southern seafood, I encouraged them to go for it. What has resulted is Salt & Shore: Recipes from the Coastal South, filled with stories, sips, and plenty of recipes and photographs that will make you long for sea breezes if you’re missing them. It’s a vibe, something that Kassady and Sammy excel at in their restaurants, which include the now-closed Preux & Proper in LA -- that gained a Michelin Bib Gourmand in 2019 -- and Joyce Soul & Sea, also in LA where they teamed up with founders and operators, Prince and Athena Riley. Joyce was named a “Southern oasis in LA” by LA Times food critic Bill Addison, and the Carolina natives bring Southern flavors to both the food and beverage programs. They are living bi-coastal these days between LA and Charleston and dreaming of their next project. Me? After this conversation, I’m dreaming of hushpuppies, so I’m glad there are two recipes to choose from in their book. 

Other episodes you might enjoy: 

Sammy Monsour: Preux & Proper (Los Angeles, CA)

Eric Montagne: Locals Seafood (Durham, NC)

When I first spoke with Chef Michael Toscano in 2017, he and his family were just getting settled in Charleston with the opening of Le Farfalle. Now, seven years later, the chef seems as if he’s truly settled into a new rhythm between NYC and the Lowcountry. He and his wife Caitlin currently have four restaurants: the aforementioned Le Farfalle, da Toscano in New York’s Greenwich Village, da Toscano Porchetta Shop in Charleston, and Fugazzi, a small spot inside Charleston’s Revelry Brewing that serves what Michael calls unauthentic Italian-inspired American food. The last two are decidedly casual, a new turn for a chef that’s been anything but when it comes to his career. He was a sous chef at Mario Batali’s Babbo by the age of 21, was nominated three times for Rising Star Chef by the James Beard Foundation, and opened his first chef-owned restaurant, Perla, in 2012, which made Esquire’s Best New Restaurants in America list. He’s always pursued his passion for cooking, but now that passion is a team sport, where he looks to grow and support the rising stars in his own restaurants as well as the farmers he loves to work with. And one way he does that? By topping soft, crusty focaccia, fresh out of the oven, with all sorts of delicious things. 

Other episodes you might enjoy: 

Michael Toscano: Le Farfalle (Charleston, SC)

Craig Richards: Lyla Lila (Atlanta, GA)

Adrian Lipscombe is a native Texan, a chef, an urban planner, and a civic activist, though she prefers the term catalyst. In 2016, she moved to La Crosse, Wisconsin and opened Uptowne Café, a gathering place and a space for her to explore the synergy behind her Southern upbringing, Midwest ingredients and African American culinary history. In 2020, she founded the 40 Acres Project, which seeks to preserve the legacy of Black agriculture and foodways through the purchase of Black owned land. She’s also a founding member of the Muloma Heritage Center, a non-profit exploring the African Atlantic influences in American culture, she serves on the board of the Edna Lewis Foundation, she’s cooking at festivals and events all around the country, and today, was featured in NY Daily News for an upcoming Juneteenth Celebration with the James Beard Foundation. Adrian currently lives in Austin while pursuing a PhD in Urban and Regional Planning at the University of Texas at Austin. And yes, her intelligence and enthusiasm for life is an understatement.

Other episodes related to this one:

Dr. Howard Conyers: BBQ Pitmaster, Distiller, & Rocket Scientist (New Orleans, LA & Manning, SC)

Charcuterie boards are lighting up social media these days, but have you ever considered seafood charcuterie? According to a Johns Hopkins research study, nearly half of the US’ seafood supply goes to waste, and there are few people in the food system who know how to counteract that. Enter Eric Montagne, a chef who is part of a growing number of culinary professionals changing that, applying their butchery skills and whole animal respect in a whole new, watery direction. At Locals Seafood in Raleigh and Durham, NC, Eric transforms what previously may have been discarded into delicious retail products, from bottarga made from NC mullet roe, to a tuna bloodline burger that has so far utilized more than 1000 pounds of tuna meat that would have been discarded -- and has been named one of the NC Triangle’s epic burgers by Eater Carolinas. He previously worked with Chef Vivian Howard at the Boiler Room Oyster Bar, and was the executive chef at Raleigh’s Standard Foods before joining Locals. This all is a full-circle moment for a Miami-born boy who grew up fishing in the Florida Keys and left to attend Johnson and Wales in Denver with beef on the brain.

Fancy dining isn’t all fluff. At Wild Common in Charleston, SC, Orlando Pagán puts his culinary passion on the plate with every service. He left Puerto Rico after high school to attend Johnson & Wales in Miami, and following graduation, spent three years at the Ritz-Carlton Coconut Grove. In San Francisco, he cooked in a handful of acclaimed restaurants before leading the kitchen of Michelin-starred The Village Pub as executive chef. In 2017 Pagán relocated to the Lowcountry of South Carolina to join Sean Brock at McCrady’s Tavern, and in 2019, he helped open Wild Common, where he leads the culinary program as executive chef and was recently nominated for James Beard Best Chef: South. In the midst of this illustrious career, he was diagnosed with multiple sclerosis, but his careful management of the disease and focus on team and family keep him strong in the job.

Visit Maison in Charleston, SC any night it’s open, and there’s a definite vibe -- one that pays homage to the best of classic Left Bank Parisian creativity without the slightest hint of nostalgia. That’s a delicate balancing act, but Chef Vandy Vanderwarker accomplishes it through sheer will and his passion for a cuisine he’s loved since he watched chefs on television as a child. He continued his interest in cooking throughout college, and when he graduated, attended The French Culinary Institute in New York. After working in a series of restaurants in New York City, he moved to Charleston where he refined his style, including as Chef de Cuisine at The Ordinary, then opened Maison three years ago. It’s the home of sweetbreads with black trumpet mushrooms, galettes of shrimp and stone crab, and plenty of pomme frites, which I suggest ordering with a side of escargot. 

Although this show’s focus is usually the American South, my own culinary borders -- and I suspect yours too -- are actually a lot more fluid. Today, I welcome you to explore that in conversation with two chefs from the recent Charleston Wine + Food festival who inspire me to be bold, have confidence, respect the reader and the guest, and always remember food is a language.  

Maryam Ghaznavi, the force behind Malika, South Carolina’s first-ever Pakistani restaurant, and soon-to-be-opened Ma’am Saab, is bringing a taste of Pakistani culture and cuisine to the Lowcountry. She and her husband, Raheel, are expressing their culinary heritage with confidence and enthusiasm, and the results are nothing short of delicious. Also on the mic is Fatima Khawaja. She graduated from the Culinary Institute of America in 2012, and after working in some of NYC’s most iconic restaurants, is now the Test Kitchen Manager for Saveur, which means she’s edited my work multiple times, and she’s developing her own produce-focused column for the magazine. Together, they explore what it means to express cultural heritage through food from two unique perspectives, and I am joyfully along for the ride. Please note: So you can tell the voices apart, they introduce themselves at the beginning of this audio. 

Think an egg is just an egg? Think again. While professional cooks, and especially pasta chefs and bakers know the power of a perfect egg, most of the rest of us are still in the dark as to the differences between the ones on sale and all those other ones that are free range, or organic, or even gathered from a neighbor’s coop. That was the case for Jeremy Storey too of Storey Farms on Johns Island, SC. He was a chef at Chicago’s elite three-Michelin-star restaurant Alinea, and until he traded in his apron to become a farmer, he’d never considered what makes a perfect egg. That’s been his mission these last eight years, and it’s won him some of Charleston’s most discerning culinary customers, including past guests Cynthia Wong of Life Raft Treats and Jason Stanhope of FIG. In fact, you’ll see Storey Farms on many a Lowcountry menu, and even in my fridge. Once you have a Storey Farm egg, there’s no going back.

There’s no getting around it. Smoke is in Carey Bringle’s veins. He grew up in Tennessee and developed a love of barbecue at a young age, and he still remembers family gatherings at iconic places like Bozo’s Hot Pit Bar B-Q and Lewis’ Store. At 17, he lost a leg to cancer, but recovered from the disease, and after success for years on the competition BBQ circuit, celebrated his second chance at life by naming his restaurant Peg Leg Porker when it opened in Nashville in 2013. His Peg Leg Porker sauces and rubs, another restaurant, a new line of professional-grade home smokers, and Peg Leg Porker Tennessee Straight Bourbon Whiskies have expanded the bbq into a full-fledged brand, but Carey has not lost sight of building community over a great plate of barbecue cooked low and slow in the heart of Nashville, TN.

Chef Ricky Moore of Saltbox Seafood Joint in Durham, NC, always planned to be an artist. Growing up in Eastern North Carolina, Moore’s family was always cooking, and soon Moore found himself cooking, too—as part of the 82nd Airborne. After the military, Moore used the GI Bill and graduated from the Culinary Institute of America in 1994 and subsequently cooked in some of the most important kitchens of the past 20 years, including Daniel and Tru. When it came time to open his own place, he trained his artist’s eye back on North Carolina and the simplicity of fresh caught, well prepared seafood. Moore has just been nominated James Beard Foundation for “Best Chef”: Southeast, Discover awarded the restaurant $25,000 as part of its #EatItForward campaign for black-owned restaurateurs, and he’s competed on Iron Chef America. Still, most days, you can see him at Saltbox, working to keep the tables clear, the kitchen humming, and the guests happy. His work is a study in technique and storytelling, set in an atmosphere that is part diner, part church fish fry, and all community gathering spot.

Sheri Castle was born in North Carolina’s Blue Ridge Mountains, and she’s always been at home in the kitchen and the garden out its back door. She wrote her first recipe at age 4, studied English at The University of North Carolina, and through the years has combined her passion and knowledge for cooking with an innate storytelling gift. She develops recipes for publications and restaurants, teaches at culinary schools, collaborates on books with chefs and personalities, she publishes her own books, and now hosts a television show, The Key Ingredient on PBS North Carolina. Sheri is a calm guide in the kitchen, and that comes from a rich foundation of research, contemplation, and curiosity. She is a scholar of Southern food among us, always inviting us to the table for a good meal.

Durham, NC is a kaleidoscope of small-town downtown charm that recalls a factory and farming past, mixed with Duke University, a progressive college and one of the foremost medical research campuses in the country. Add to that the fact that you can get out of town fast to rolling farmland or coastal destinations, and it’s a great place to open a restaurant. Chef Matthew Kelly has opened four : Vin Rouge, Mateo, St. James Seafood, and Mothers & Sons, and in doing so has changed the way a city eats. After graduating from the Culinary Institute of America, Kelly worked at The Inn at Little Washington in Virginia before moving to the NC Triangle in 2002. He’s been nominated for four James Beard awards, and Mateo was on the list for Best New Restaurant in 2013. In April of 2019, a devastating gas explosion in Durham’s Brightleaf District temporarily closed St. James, and then the pandemic hit, but his latest restaurant just reopened for the third time, and Kelly is as passionate about the business and the joy of restaurants as he’s ever been. He’s the guy who can inspire you to be a more adventurous diner, to take a chance to do what you love, and to put in the hard work to make it good.

Although Charleston, SC, has changed a lot, it is still one of the cities in the US with a decidedly European feel. Many parts of it are very walkable, there are cobblestone alleyways and al fresco dining, and lingering over a meal is absolutely encouraged. One of the best places to linger this time of year -- or anytime really -- is Malagón Mercado y Tapería. Juan Cassalett is the executive chef and co-owner, and although he grew up in Tennessee and Colombia in South America, his family is originally from Spain. Malagón is a slice of Spain in the Holy City. There’s jamon hanging from the rafters, a Spanish wine list and a mercado filled with Spanish groceries, but the Lowcountry shines through too in the seasonal dishes created with local ingredients. The restaurant has been featured in multiple publications, including Forbes, Charleston Magazine, and Conde Nast Traveler. Juan is married to Jill Mathias, executive chef/co-owner of Chez Nous, where he was the sous chef for 5 years.  

Other episodes that are related to this one:

Jill Mathias, Chez Nous (Charleston, SC)

It’s the last show of 2021, so host Stephanie Burt takes a look back at some especially insightful interviews, then talks about trends that we can expect to continue in the new year. There are always stories behind the show, so she shares a few of her own here. 

Chef Kevin Mitchell of the Culinary Institute of Charleston in Charleston, SC, has professional interests that far exceed the confines of the kitchen. Disciplined and driven, he earned two degrees from the Culinary Institute of America and went on to hone his craft with hands-on experience at restaurants including Sun Dial in Atlanta, Seldom Blues Supper Club in Detroit and the MGM Grand Detroit Hotel. In 2008, he joined the faculty in Charleston as its first African-American chef, where he still teaches, but beyond the classroom, throughout the years, he’s created special events that honor black culinary ancestors, been a SC Chef Ambassador, and now, along with Episode 65’s Dr. David Shields, has co-authored Taste the State: South Carolina's Signature Foods, Recipes, and Their Stories. At 51, Kevin is as passionate as ever about scholarship, inspiration for the next generation, and the perfect way to debone a fish.

Around 2.5 million visitors make the trek to Hilton Head Island, S.C. each year, and a portion of those at least, have made it a family tradition to rent homes on the island for holiday gathering, which is a smart idea when sunshine and palm trees are the backdrop for Santa instead of snow. Andrew Carmines of Hudson’s Seafood on the Docks (locally just referred to as Hudson’s) has been a part of this seasonal rhythm his whole life, growing up on the island and in the family restaurant he now operates. Local fishing and shrimping boats dock right at the restaurant on Skull Creek, and Andrew farms local oysters, making Hudson’s one of the freshest and most seafood-centric spots on the island. The breeze is fine, the drinks are cold, and there’s plenty of seating on the patio with friendly service ready to share some Lowcountry flavors.

There is a lot of talk in professional kitchens these days about the power of mentorship, but for many of you outside those spaces, the stereotype of the angry, belittling chef still seems to stick. So today I remedy that, bringing you inside the kitchen to meet Tim Morton, a chef mentored by chefs who is now focusing on mentorship in his own career while still putting out seriously satisfying food at Frannie & The Fox located inside Emeline hotel in Charleston, SC. He originally moved to the city to open Mercantile and Mash for Indigo Road years ago, but before that he was the executive sous chef at The Umstead Hotel and Spa in Cary, NC under the leadership of Steven Greene and previously Scott Crawford. He also spent time as chef tournant of Chicago’s famed Alinea, so he knows his way around a fine dining kitchen, and now at Frannie & the Fox, a flaming hot wood-fired oven.

It’s Hanukkah, and to celebrate this festival of light with a Southern accent, I asked Marcie Cohen Ferris to provide some insight into Jewish foodways in the American South. Her deep attachment to the study of place is rooted in her childhood in Arkansas. For over 40 years, she’s studied, documented, interpreted, exhibited, taught, and written about the South, largely through its foodways, material culture, and the southern Jewish experience. As a professor emeritus in the Department of American Studies at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, Ferris is an editor for Southern Cultures, and her books include: The Edible South: The Power of Food and the Making of an American Region, Matzoh Ball Gumbo: Culinary Tales of the Jewish South, and co-authoring Jewish Roots in Southern Soil: A New History. She has many more accolades to list, but to me, the most important one is personal. I discovered her work while an American Studies instructor myself, and it opened a door to a new path that today includes this very episode.

After a week of thinking about cooking turkey and a day of eating it, you might want to consider something else, so come with me to the Gulf of Mexico, where the sand is white and the seafood is plenty. This is the source of inspiration and menu items for Adam Evans, chef and co-owner, along with his wife Suzanne, of Automatic Seafood & Oysters in Birmingham, AL. Housed in a former mid-century warehouse, a table here has been one of the hottest in town since the restaurant opened in 2019. Adam started his career in Fairhope at The Grand Hotel, spent time cooking in some of the best kitchens in New Orleans, has worked as the executive chef of private events for Tom Colicchio’s team at Craft in NYC, and was the opening chef of The Optimist in Atlanta for Ford Fry in 2012. Automatic Seafood & Oysters was a James Beard Foundation finalist for Best New Restaurant in 2020, and here he brings his passion for seafood back to his home state of Alabama.

The iconic Big Bob Gibson Bar-B-Q restaurant in Decatur, AL was founded in 1925, its classic neon sign still shining brightly today. Chris Lilly, a 4th generation partner, is now pitmaster, as well as the head of the restaurant’s competition cooking team, a team that’s won a record five Memphis in May World Grand Championships. I’d eaten Chris’ cooking before at festivals, but we first connected personally at a Yeti store meet and greet, a company for which he is a sponsor. Alabama barbecue tradition has Big Bob Gibson in its bedrock, and Lilly has not only honored tradition but built on it with creativity, drive and respect for ingredients and the time it takes to learn the craft of cue. He was inducted into the Barbecue Hall of Fame in 2016, and we sat down after he fired up the pits for the first Holy Smokes BBQ Festival here in Charleston, SC.  

It used to be that food trucks were incubators for emerging talent, but the last few years, with real estate prices skyrocketing and a pandemic rocking everything, that’s not always the rule. Caitlin Schumacher isn't an emerging talent -- she’s an established powerhouse in the culinary scene. She grew up in Chapel Hill, NC and graduated from UNC with a French degree, but after she started working at Magnolia Grill, she fell in love with the energy of the kitchen and decided to pursue her pastry passion. From there she worked at the beloved 20th Century Cafe in San Fran and most recently 6 years as Executive Pastry Chef at FIG in Charleston, that is, until she got the chance to buy a food truck last summer. She’s opened Girl Next Dough, a new business venture on four wheels with her dad John McCormick. She’s crafting breakfast and bakery dreams, from country ham and parmesan puffs, to fresh bagels, lemon blueberry danishes, and apple buns.

In coastal Georgia, Matthew Raiford grew up breaking the dirt and trading squash for sweet potatoes, raising hogs and chickens, and only going to the grocery store for staples. After a military career then graduation from the Culinary Institute of America in Hyde Park, Matthew returned to Brunswick, GA in 2011 to continue the traditions of his Gullah-Geechee heritage and to create an authentic farm-to-fork experience for locals. He is the former executive chef of Little St. Simons Resort and was the chef owner of The Farmer and the Larder in Brunswick. Certified as an ecological horticulturist, he runs Gilliard Farms with his sister Althea, a family farm first established in 1874. They’re the sixth generation to cultivate the land, and no one has ever used chemicals to grow any crops on it. His first cookbook is titled Bress 'n' Nyam: Gullah Geechee Recipes from a Sixth-Generation Farmer.

Come with me to a valley in Eastern Tennessee filled with fresh mountain air and grass-filled pastures where cows wander and graze all day. This is the birthplace of the cheese of Sequatchie Cove Creamery, one of the South’s foremost cheesemakers, whose Dancing Fern cheese wowed the American cheese community -- and beyond -- when it debuted in 2012. Located 35 minutes northwest from Chattanooga, this creamery is the brainchild of Nathan and Padgett Arnold, who work to capture the unique taste of this place through raw-milk cheese production, a passion that Nathan pursued when he left the cove to apprentice for a time in the Savoie region of France. I’ve been sampling their selections on Southern restaurant menus for years, and not only is it addictively delicious, it’s produced through 100% solar power in a sustainable facility right on Sequatchie Cove Farm. You might never get the chance to make a visit this magical place, but one bite, and it’s as if you can feel that mountain sun as it moves across the valley.

On a cool, misty morning when the trees were bright green with their first flush of leaves, I rounded a corner on Route 215 in the NC Mountains and arrived at one of Sunburst Trout’s rainbow trout farms. Pristine water flowed continuously into multiple holding ponds, which held different sizes of trout with plenty of room to move around and swim. Here, in this storybook cove, these beautiful fish have grown for generations just downstream from the Pisgah National Forest. Wes Eason is the third generation to raise trout at Sunburst, which was founded by his grandfather in 1948, and the company preserves Appalachian food traditions, including the value of necessity. Morsels of trout that are too small for filets become smoked trout dip or trout jerky, and the roe of harvested fish is preserved and sold as trout caviar. Many of the chefs featured on this show include Sunburst Trout Farm products on their menus, and that was exactly how I discovered this iconic North Carolina business years ago. 

Jacques Pepin’s Southern Fork episode referenced in this show: https://www.thesouthernfork.com/episode-206

In the world of food and drink, we often need guides. I know I do, and that’s also one of the most wonderful things about the culinary world -- if you approach with curiosity instead of a know-it-all attitude, there’s so much to learn, and connection and community is just around the corner. Sarah Pierre, owner and operator of 3 Parks Wine Shop in Atlanta, GA, is one of the foremost guides and tastemakers for the growing focus on wine in the Southeast, and during the 9 years her store has been open, it’s become a hub for education, all those feel good neighborhood and shop local vibes, and of course a hefty pour of fun events. Sarah graduated from Georgia State University with a science degree, but she always gravitated towards the hospitality industry and worked front of house and in management at many ATL standbys, including Bacchanalia with past Southern Fork guest Anne Quatrano. 3 Parks Wine has been named one of Wine Enthusiast’s 50 Best Retailers in the US, and we talked after she led session at Gather Round festival at the Epicurean Atlanta hotel.

In the middle of Birmingham, AL sits the behemoth Sloss Furnaces, now a museum but once the tin man’s beating heart of this industrial city. During that era, quick lunches soon became big business, and hot dogs quickly reigned supreme as Chicago restaurateurs made their way down the rail line to new opportunities. In 1947, Gus Alexander, a Greek immigrant, opened Gus's Hot Dogs in its current, original location. It’s now the last remaining downtown hot dog spot, and owner Lee Pantazis, who honed his kitchen skills while working for the Yellow Bicycle, Satterfields, and Little Donkey, holds court daily, often prepping in the back for the grill guys as they perform a delicate dance up front of grilling, toppings, and keeping all those orders straight. Lee comes from a prominent Birmingham family and sees himself as caretaker of a uniquely local tradition. And he does like a good hot dog, chips, and Coca Cola in the glass bottle.

Chef Rob McDaniel is an Alabama native. He grew up in Hayleyville, graduated from Auburn, sharpened his cooking skills at ‘Bama standbys Jim N’ Nicks and Hot & Hot Fish Club, and was the longstanding chef of SpringHouse at Lake Martin. So a couple of years ago, when he told me he was opening a place of his very own in downtown Birmingham, named Helen after his granny, I knew it was going to be good, and I knew I had to visit. His passion for Southern foods, foraging, and sustainability informs his culinary style and is showcased through his dedication to simple recipes enhanced by flavorful ingredients. McDaniel is a five-time James Beard Foundation nominee for Best Chef: South , and he makes the best tomato pie I’ve ever had outside of the Carolinas. Taking a precise chef’s eye to Southern classics is what he does best, and he’s interested in his next chapter as restaurateur.

It’s time to come clean here. When Delaney Oyster House opened a few years ago, I was prepared to dismiss it as part of a group of oyster bar openings in my home city of Charleston, SC. I just thought things were getting too saturated, and it was a trend that was gearing more toward tourist dollars than unique flavors. But from my first bite at Delaney, I knew whoever was behind the stove wasn’t cooking for trends, but working from an artistic and very particular point of view. That person is Shamil Velasquez, a native of Puerto Rico and graduate of the Culinary Institute of America in Hyde Park, NY., whose tenure at Husk Greenville introduced him to South Carolina foodstuffs. He’s passionate about sourcing, focused on teamwork, and with an island background, an expert on seafood. It’s my favorite time of the food year -- oyster season -- and I can’t imagine a better conversation partner to celebrate it, with a squeeze of lime, of course.

You never know when something will capture your imagination and change your path forever. Lou Thomann was an ex-rice trader and historic building restorer living in Savannah, Ga. when he he decided to join a nature tour on Ossabaw Island, and that was the day he learned about Yaupon Holly, a native caffeinated plant known and revered by indigenous tribes but mostly forgotten in collective modern culture. Lou’s life changed that day. He’s now an expert on the yaupon holly, a farmer of it, and an evangelist for it, from speaking at the Atlanta Botanical Garden to developing programming at the Georgia Native Plant Society, and he’s one of co-owners, along with his wife Lori Judge, of Yaupon Teahouse + Apothecary in Savannah, Ga. It's the storefront for the massive farming, research, and propagation operation centered on the native plant that has helped write Lou’s next chapter.

With Labor Day behind us, a bit of a break in the high humidity, and college football on the television, it’s evident that fall temps are around the corner. This time of year, my mind doesn’t turn to pumpkin spice, it turns to all things pasta. Craig Richards of Lyla Lila in Atlanta, Ga. is a true pasta professional, having learned the craft under the renowned Lidia Bastianich, working with her and her restaurant group in Kansas City and Pittsburgh before moving to Atlanta to cook at La Tavola. From there he eventually became the Executive Chef of Ford Fry’s St. Cecilia and the VP of Culinary for that restaurant group, honing his pasta making skills and unique cooking point of view every step of the way. Lyla Lila is the first restaurant of his very own, and it welcomes diners with a warm hospitality and plenty of pasta deliciousness. Come back into its kitchen with me, and learn all the specifics about the art, and the science, of my favorite fall food.

There is a magic picnic basket on this show, a fantastical idea of a dream meal, and I struggle to recount how many of my 240+ guests have included a dish from Frank Stitt. Let’s just say it’s more than a few.. Writer Charles Gaines in Garden & Gun called him the Godfather of Southern Cuisine, and this James Beard award winner has built a dynasty of dining delight in Birmingham, AL with Highlands Bar & Grill, Chez Fonfon, and Bottega. A studious youth, he turned his philosophical eye from studying Plato to learning from Alice Waters, Simca Beck, and Richard Olney, not to mention Jeremiah Tower, but he’s still as delighted at seasonal produce coming in the kitchen door as he;s ever been, the rotation of the culinary calendar a deep well of inspiration. That enthusiasm weaves its way through his restaurants, his staff, and the dishes that are crafted, and the idea of a restaurant as revelry, as reverence, and as a respite is perhaps Stitt’s true philosophy shining forth. 

In times like these, it’s good to go back to the garden, and with school back in session, that’s exactly where some children in Birmingham, AL are headed. Jones Valley Teaching Farm is located in the city’s downtown, and its patchwork of small, urban farms within a single community is reshaping the stories and futures for those nearby. Amanda Storey is the Executive Director of the farm, where she’s been an enthusiastic advocate, volunteer, and employee for 10 years — four of which have been spent in her current role. Her passion for the connection between food and community began in her early career, and like me, she sees food through the lens of the people it touches. In a place where weeds once grew in abandoned lots, Jones Valley Teaching Farm is growing hope and imagination for a different future.

Brian Hart Hoffman is a force. Co-president and chief creative officer of Hoffman Media, he oversees the editorial planning and brand direction for all publications and books. He’s written three books and is a frequent guest on morning shows, but during my recent visit to Birmingham, AL, we focused on his Bake from Scratch magazine since he was hosting the Southern Baking Retreat. Just as he encouraged me as a fledgling podcaster, he encourages a love of baking and community in so many people who cross his path. His enthusiasm is infectious, and his thirst to be a better baker is ever with him, and I’m happy to call him my friend.

I had one of the best fried fish sandwiches I’ve had in a long while recently at Shabazz Seafood in Savannah, Ga. Whiting is fried crispy hot to order, and it’s sandwich with a stellar reputation in Savannah.  But, this take out spot that opened its order window in 1989 hasn’t been known much outside the city until recently. That all changed when it was featured this year on Netflix’s Fresh, Fried, and Crispy, and that happened because Kalifa Shabazz, who grew up working with her parents after school, found a place for herself in the business and a calling for her new profession when she began doing social media for the restaurant. Mom and Savannah Alderwoman Estella Shabazz and dad Yusuf Shabazz are community leaders, and Kalifa’s already thinking about how she can support the community further. 

Chef Dave “Smoke” McCluskey, an official member of the Mohawk nation, has spent more than 30 years in the culinary industry, in everything from fine dining kitchens to catering gigs to even organizing and hosting boucheries. Those are traditional gatherings centered around communal hog butchering that also offer a space to celebrate local foodways, and swap knowledge, stories, and seeds. It was at one such gathering that he was gifted some corn, and from that came Corn Mafia, his research, education and micromilling project to explore native foodways. He’s participated in many food festivals through the years, including in 2022, when he hosted a cooking demo as part of Virginia Tech’s Center for Food Systems and Community Transformation. He partners with South Carolina’s Congaree Milling to produce small batch products, from hominy to masa, which he primarily sells via word of mouth. Dave currently lives in Augusta and is the Chef de Cuisine at the Augusta Mariott Hotel.

Paw paw season is almost here. From late August through October, the largest native fruit to North America -- and growing in many parts of the South -- begin to ripen. These fruit are in the custard apple family and are enjoying a culinary renaissance, and so to learn more about these wild edibles, I turn to Sara Bir, the author of The Pocket Paw Paw Cookbook, just released with beautiful illustrations and plenty of ways to utilize your foraged fruit. Sara is a chef, writer, and self professed plant nerd. Her book, The Fruit Forager's Companion won a 2019 IACP Cookbook Award. She’s a graduate of the Culinary Institute of America, an editor for the website Simply Recipes, and her work has been featured and Saveur, Lucky Peach, and Paste Magazine, as you’ll hear, and she always leaves me inspired to read more, cook more, and get out in the natural world more. 

What does it mean to really have a culinary collaboration? Circumstances prompted Chefs Brandon Carter and John Benhase to join forces in a kitchen as the world was asking “What does the future of restaurants look like?” Their spot, Common Thread, is attempting to answer that question with every service. Located in Savannah, GA, in an 1897 home that was once the gift of a Prussian hat seller to his second wife, inspired work by architect Kevin Rose realized a modern restaurant vision without disregarding its original bones and nooks and crannies, and made it into a setting for the two chef’s love of hyper-local, hyper-seasonal cooking. That’s the same idea that Carter cooks from at FARM Bluffton, the small-community sister to this restaurant in Bluffton, SC. Benhase, who cooked under Chef Ford Fry in Atlanta before moving to Savannah to helm Starland Yard, brings a steady organizational and ultra-creative hand. This restaurant is all about relationships -- with the seasons, with the producers, with the guests, and with the team -- and that focus is something that is only going to get stronger.

In the world of creativity, writing like yourself, playing music like only you can play it, or cooking from a true place and point of view inside yourself -- that’s the sweet spot. We’re all chasing that and even when we find it, we have to find it again every time we sit down to create, which is part of the frustration and part of the fun. Shuai Wang cooks from just such a place, a culinary intuition that straddles two cultures. He met his wife and business partner, Corrie Wang, at New York City’s Chez Sardine, where he was chef de cuisine and she worked front of house. They moved South, eventually opening Short Grain food truck, from which Shuai was nominated for Rising Star Chef in 2017 by the James Beard Foundation. Now he and Corrie own and operate Jackrabbit Filly in North Charleston, S.C. Named after Shuai and Corrie’s Chinese zodiac animals, the restaurant serves heritage-driven New Chinese American cuisine in a fun, friendly neighborhood environment. It’s quirky, it’s busy, and oh so delicious.  

Just 7% of U.S. businesses overall were Black-owned before the pandemic, according to data from a University of California, Santa Cruz study, and, of course, black-owned restaurants were only a portion of that number. In 2020, North Charleston, SC native KJ Kearney began the Black Food Fridays Instagram account with a simple idea -- it would be a way for people to find and support Black-owned restaurants. It has since evolved into multiple platforms highlighting dishes, desserts, drinks, and the people who make them in black-owned restaurants, as well as larger discussions at the intersection of race, food, and history. The Instagram account alone now has more than 31,000 followers, and KJ has partnered with corporations from Pepsi to Amazon to bring awareness to black food businesses all over the country. He’s led food tours, held his first live event, and participated in panels and discussions. He and Anela Malik also host the Fix Your Plate podcast on the Eat Drink Dine Network. 

It’s not the neighborhood you expect. It’s not throwing those flashy, Atlanta vibes with its post-industrial decor and lack of dress code or velvet ropes. And the night I visited, a festive group was having birthday fun, laughing and singing at the chef’s counter. Welcome to Lazy Betty, a mirage of unapologetically upscale dining in an unassuming brown building in the Candler Park neighborhood of Atlanta, GA. Chefs Ron Hsu and Aaron Phillips met during their tenures at Le Bernardin in NYC, and they curate an intimate experience with an open-kitchen setting and conversational service. The modern menu embodies the inspirations of years of professional training, and I had everything from a halibut with green tomato and ham broth to something called a duck cigar. Each course was delicious, intellectual, and fun. I’m so happy to be thrilled by restaurants again. And I was thrilled by my Lazy Betty experience, a rollercoaster ride of what fine dining can be. 

When Chubby Fish in Charleston, SC is closed, there are dark blue velvet curtains in the windows that obscure a view inside. However, when 5 p.m. comes, those curtains are opened and Chef James London and his team are ready to serve a lot of hungry diners. They come for all things seafood, a variety of fish and shellfish prepared in a variety of ways, but always with an eye for balance and a respect for the product.  The restaurant was named one of Bon Appetit’s Best New Restaurants in America in 2019, and I’ve also included it the last two years in the Best Restaurants in Charleston for Conde Nast Traveler. James attended the French Culinary Institute and has cooked in San Francisco and New York, but the waters and the dining culture of the South Carolina Lowcountry keep his creativity fresh and keep me coming back for another Chubby Fish experience. 

Here’s a new term you might want to remember: RTD, or “Ready to Drink.” It’s growth in the beverage category is exponential, but I often found the cocktails too syrupy for my palate. Until now.  Tip Top Proper Cocktails in Atlanta was founded by music industry veterans Neal Cohen and Yoni Reisman (Governor’s Ball in NYC) after they recognized a gap in the market for a quality portable cocktail. The recipes are developed by seven-time James Beard Award nominated barman Miles Macquarrie of Atlanta’s Kimball House and Watchman’s, and they’re so good, I can’t quite decide which one is my favorite. How I Built This With Guy Raz is one of my go-to podcasts, and today I pay homage to that particular form with this interview, recorded live at Kimball House as prep was beginning to ramp up all around us. 

Next time you’re at a food event, watching a commercial where someone’s eating pizza, flipping through a magazine with beautiful food pictures, or enjoying a movie scene where the lead introduces her new boyfriend at the holiday table, I hope you’ll think of Gena Berry of Culinary Works based in Atlanta, GA. She is, as she simply puts it, one of the people who put the food in all of these scenes. From food styling to recipe development, to ad campaigns and special food events, Gena is behind the scenes coordinating, organizing, planning and testing, not to mention often cooking up a storm. Her client list runs the gamut from Capital One to Delta Airlines, the Kentucky Derby to Georgia Organics, and her job is to have the food ready for showtime, whether that’s in front of a camera or for a crowd of thousands. 

Restaurants are immersive experiences, and while some grow organically, most are planned with intention, and it’s often the architect who is bringing that intention to life, setting the stage for the nightly dance of server, food, guest, and environment. Architect David Thompson has been involved in the building or renovation of many of the restaurants that have been featured on this show. His firm was founded in 2010 in Charleston, SC, and he’s brought the vision of The Ordinary, The Grocery, and multiple projects by Steve Palmer’s Indigo Road to life, so his is a unique insider’s view into the makings of a culinary culture. The questions he asks when designing a space can better help us to understand not only restaurant life for those who work in them, but how our experience as diners is shaped by the space in which we are dining.

Beautiful Briny Sea is an artisan dry goods company based in Atlanta, GA, but that doesn’t really explain the magic that happens behind its humble doors. It’s like an alchemist's cave full of spices, salt, and bright, shiny sugar sprinkles in all colors of the rainbow. At the center of it all is Suzi Sheffield, founder and CEO, former restaurateur turned salt storyteller. This company’s salt blends are very balanced, and often intricate with subtle layers of flavor, in 16 varieties, from Magic Unicorn to Bird Bath Turkey Brine. Then there are sugar cane blends and sprinkles, too, as well as a creative approach that is a perfect blend of sweet and salty, taking a company from too small for a farmers market to partnerships with Jeni’s Ice Creams, Williams-Sonoma, and more. 

Passion for your work can give you energy to do more than you ever dreamed you’d have time for. That’s the case for William Dissen, chef of The Market Place in Asheville, NC, which this year, its 45th in operation, was named a semifinalist for Outstanding Restaurant by the James Beard Foundation. William began honing his skills through study at the Culinary Institute of America and in various kitchens, including the Greenbrier Resort in West Virginia, and the beloved but now closed Cypress in Charleston, SC. In addition to another restaurant venture, Billy D’s Fried Chicken, he has a big life outside the kitchen as well. He’s a member of the U.S. State Department’s American Chefs Corps, a “Seafood Watch Ambassador” for the Monterey Bay Aquarium, on the board of the University of South Carolina’s School of Hospitality and Tourism Management, and now, a cookbook author with Thoughtful Cooking: Recipes Rooted in the New South. Granted, it’s an unusual title for a man who always seems on the go, but because of his style of cooking, he’s always looking to nature and the seasons, which tell him to slow down and notice. It’s a practice he actively cultivates. Take one bite of his food, and that’s evident -- there’s a point of view and a grounded ethos behind every dish.

Roots Down is redefining urban agriculture in Atlanta. Helmed by Jamie Rosenthal, a self-proclaimed reformed farmer, the business has ambitious goals in many areas, but we sat down to focus on the Fruitful Communities initiative. With it, he along with private and policy-making partners, are identifying, planning, designing, and implementing edible landscapes in urban settings in Dekalb County, Georgia. There are a lot of passive landscapes in modern America, from parking lot medians to shrubbery in front of public libraries, and the aim here is to make these more active and useful, either through providing food or creating spaces that benefit pollinators and other native species. It’s a simple idea, but wildly ambitious at the same time. 

Kristian Niemi is a pioneer in Columbia, SC’s food and beverage industry. He’s opened some of the city’s most popular restaurants, including Mr. Friendly's, New Southern Café, Gervais + Vine, and most recently, Bourbon and Black Rooster. As one of those guys that likes all aspects of the restaurant business, from cooking to mixology to front of house design, and even events and catering, he’s followed that interest, building businesses along the way and in the process transforming the city in which he lives. But he never forgets it’s all about a good time with good food, from seared filets and shrimp po boys, to open fire cooking events on a farm.

This week is American Craft Beer Week, which celebrates independent breweries. One of the most unique stories I’ve discovered in this genre is Tennessee Brew Works in Nashville. CEO and President Christian Spears once was a derivative trader on Wall Street with a focus on emerging market government debt, but he wanted to remake his life into something different. While he’d always loved craft beer from his college days bartending, and through the years developed beer knowledge and appreciation while traveling the world, he eventually delved into home brewing and the path became clear. Tennessee Brew Works is Tennessee through and through, from ingredients to labeling, and their commitment to sourcing local yields delicious results in every glass.