Chris Smith is executive director of the Utopian Seed Project, a crop-trialing nonprofit working to celebrate food and farming. Within this work, Chris collaborates on The Heirloom Collard Project, hosts a seasonal Trial to Table event series, and publishes Crop Stories, a crop-specific multimedia project. His book, The Whole Okra, won a James Beard Foundation Award in 2020, and he is the co-host of The Okra Pod Cast. In 2023 Chris received the Organic Educator Award from The Organic Growers School and was named a Champion of Conservation by Garden & Gun. More info at blueandyellomakes.com and utopianseed.org
CJ Lotz is the senior editor at Garden & Gun. Since joining G&G ten years ago, she has covered food, gardens, books, arts and culture, and travel across the Southeast and beyond. When she’s not writing or editing, you can find her in her Charleston garden or mudlarking (looking for bits of broken pottery and treasures on her travels).
Samm is the owner of Matcha Nude, an ethical, sustainable, delicious and affordable organic matcha company helping people elevate their lives with easy recipes, tips + community.
Martinez (he/him) was born in Santa Catarina Loxicha, Oaxaca, Mexico, in a small Zapotec pueblo. Based in Asheville, NC, Luis is combining his love for cooking with his passion for social justice. He is dedicated to working alongside indigenous communities in overcoming and flourishing, despite difficult economic challenges and dangerous political encounters. By combining his experience in community-building with his experience as a chef, he is leveraging a deep commitment to the roots of Mexican cuisine with the promotion of Oaxacan gastronomy.
Matt Rodbard is a writer, editor, and author of food and culture books with more than two decades of experience working in television, magazines, book publishing, and online media. He’s the author of Koreatown: A Cookbook, a New York Times Bestseller, Food IQ, an Amazon and Publishers Weekly Bestseller, and the Founding Editor of online food and culture magazine TASTE, winner of two James Beard Foundation Awards. His writing has appeared in the New York Times, the Wall Street Journal, Travel + Leisure, Bon Appétit, Saveur, GQ, and Fodor’s. He’s currently working on a book with Deuki Hong, Koreaworld: A Cookbook, to be published in 2024 by Clarkson Potter.
Preeti Waas is the chef owner of Cheeni Indian Food Emporium in Raleigh, NC.
From a young child in India fascinated by the alchemy of baking to a James Beard Best Chef Southeast semifinalist 2023, one thing has never changed for Preeti – the gratification and joy of feeding people. She is a self-taught cook and baker who is always curious – and always hungry.
Prior to his newest venture as the Owner and Executive Chef at beloved Tastee Diner in Asheville, NC, Chef Steven Goff served as the Executive Chef at funky Modern American restaurant, Jargon, in West Asheville. Before that, Goff worked as the head butcher at Standard Foods in Raleigh, and is the former Executive Chefand Owner of the King James Public House and AUX Bar in Asheville. Steven left home at fifteen, and spent the next eleven years homeless, jumping freight trains across the US and Europe, cooking wherever his travels took him. After being stranded in Asheville, he got more serious about cooking and enrolled in the AB Tech culinary program receiving honorable degrees in both Culinary Arts, and Baking and Pastry. Because of his early life experiences, he is highly dedicated to supporting the local community through his food. He co-directed the popular local fundraising event The Blind Pig Supper Club, and served on the Board of Directors of Asheville Independent Restaurants. Goff is currently on the Board of the Piedmont Culinary Guild in Charlotte and the Chow Chow Culinary Event Series in Asheville. Chef Goff’s cuisine has been recognized by Food and Wine Magazine, Bon Appétit, Garden and Gun, The Local Palate, and various local publications. In 2019 he was named Chefof the Year by the North Carolina Restaurant and Lodging Association. He lives in Asheville with his wonderful wife Samantha, their daughter Emma, and their array of animals.
Diane Flynt, founder of Foggy Ridge Cider and author of Wild, Tamed, Lost, Revived: The Surprising Story of Apples in the South, grows cider apples in the southern Appalachians and writes about fruit, farming, and the South. Her book offers a new take on the history of the apple and how this fruit changed the South.
Showing how southerners cultivated over 2,000 apple varieties from Virginia to Mississippi, the book shares surprising stories of a fruit that was central to the region for more than two hundred years.
A Georgia native, Diane worked for over twenty years in corporate America before seeing the light and
returning to her farming roots. In 1997, Diane planted a cider apple orchard with over 30 heirloom cider
varieties with the goal of making fine cider using the same techniques and care that go into making fine
wine. Southern cider varieties like Hewe’s Crab and Grimes Golden, as well traditional English cider apples such as Tremlett’s Bitter, produced top quality cider fruit for Foggy Ridge Cider’s six cider blends.
She was a four-time James Beard Award nominee for Outstanding Beverage Professional, including Finalist in 2017 and 2018. In 2019 Diane sold her last cider vintage called Foggy Ridge Final Call. She now sells apples to cidermakers throughout the South.
Today, Diane is active in national and state apple and cider initiatives and has played a leading role in
promoting Virginia wine. She speaks on cider, farming and food culture. The University of North Carolina
Press will publish Wild, Tamed, Lost, Revived in September 2023. The book can be pre-ordered from
Amazon.
“If you suspect the apple-evangelist, Diane Flynt’s, book would be an ode to tree fruit you’d be wrong. Instead Wild, Tamed, Lost, Revived is a personal and anecdotal walk through the storied orchard of the American South led by one of our country’s most poignant symbols, the apple.” —Vivian Howard, restaurateur author of Deep Run Roots: Stories & Recipes from my Corner of the South, and host of Somewhere South and A Chef’s Life
Diane lives with her husband, Chuck, near Floyd, Virginia, on the site of the Foggy Ridge Cider orchards.
Diane Flynt, founder of Foggy Ridge Cider and author of Wild, Tamed, Lost, Revived: The Surprising Story of Apples in the South, grows cider apples in the southern Appalachians and writes about fruit, farming, and the South. Her book offers a new take on the history of the apple and how this fruit changed the South.
Showing how southerners cultivated over 2,000 apple varieties from Virginia to Mississippi, the book shares surprising stories of a fruit that was central to the region for more than two hundred years.
A Georgia native, Diane worked for over twenty years in corporate America before seeing the light and
returning to her farming roots. In 1997, Diane planted a cider apple orchard with over 30 heirloom cider
varieties with the goal of making fine cider using the same techniques and care that go into making fine
wine. Southern cider varieties like Hewe’s Crab and Grimes Golden, as well traditional English cider apples such as Tremlett’s Bitter, produced top quality cider fruit for Foggy Ridge Cider’s six cider blends.
She was a four-time James Beard Award nominee for Outstanding Beverage Professional, including Finalist in 2017 and 2018. In 2019 Diane sold her last cider vintage called Foggy Ridge Final Call. She now sells apples to cidermakers throughout the South.
Today, Diane is active in national and state apple and cider initiatives and has played a leading role in
promoting Virginia wine. She speaks on cider, farming and food culture. The University of North Carolina
Press will publish Wild, Tamed, Lost, Revived in September 2023. The book can be pre-ordered from
Amazon.
“If you suspect the apple-evangelist, Diane Flynt’s, book would be an ode to tree fruit you’d be wrong. Instead Wild, Tamed, Lost, Revived is a personal and anecdotal walk through the storied orchard of the American South led by one of our country’s most poignant symbols, the apple.” —Vivian Howard, restaurateur author of Deep Run Roots: Stories & Recipes from my Corner of the South, and host of Somewhere South and A Chef’s Life
Diane lives with her husband, Chuck, near Floyd, Virginia, on the site of the Foggy Ridge Cider orchards.
After spending over a decade as a successful restaurant chef, Brad left his Kentucky home in search of a better understanding of food production. He spent several years working on small organic fruit & vegetable farms across the country. His experiences eventually forced him to accept that the sustainable food growing system he had hoped to find was non existent in the agricultural world and that sustainable agriculture is indeed an oxymoron. Disappointed and disheartened he left California. A seemingly random series of events guided him in the mountains of Western North Carolina. Where, unknown to him, a large part of his family had been living for over 8 generations!! Upon exploring the forests there, he found the truly sustainable food production he had been searching for! Nuts, berries, fruits, vegetables, herbs, mushrooms, meat, and even building materials were all growing without any human influence. No diesel, no plastic, no unnatural fertilizers, just Gaia providing for us in the way she always has! Inspired by this abundance, Brad utilized the skills he had acquired along his journey and started his business, Zero Acres Farm, in an effort to make high quality, truly sustainable wild produce more available to the people.
Buen Lobo Café is Brad’s most recent project which he uses to demonstrate the spectacular flavors and the superior nutrition found in wild foods. Buen Lobo provides high quality, nutrient dense food medicines to the people despite the laws and regulations created by our government that try to keep healthy food out of reach of the average person.
This world belongs to all the creatures living within it, especially those yet to arrive. She deserves our utmost respect when deciding what we “need” to take and how best we can give back. No body owns the land!
William Dissen is a renowned chef and culinary diplomat, restaurateur, published author, and is the early pioneer of the farm-to-table and ocean sustainability movements. Chef Dissen is based in Asheville, North Carolina and works throughout the Southeastern, United States, Appalachian region.
Founder of four award-winning restaurant concepts, Chef Dissen draws on his global culinary expertise and zest for diverse ingredients that tell a story to create world-class dishes for each restaurant’s guests. Throughout the year, Dissen travels in the U.S. and abroad as a sustainable food policy advocate, and also regularly appears in national media and broadcast television. Dissen is known for providing audiences of all types with timely and compelling education and entertainment in food and dining, teaching Appalachian food history that would otherwise be lost, and upholding the principles of food sustainability. William’s actions in sustainable food advocacy combined with his efforts connecting small farms to local restaurants and organic food grocery stores in the Appalachian foodshed earned him “Green Chef of the Year” twice by FORTUNE Magazine.
Dissen’s restaurant enterprises first-began in 2009, when he purchased The Market Place Restaurant in Asheville, North Carolina, a storied restaurant known for its menu of ingredients sourced exclusively from local farms. Now in its 45th year of business, The Market Place is a permanent fixture in the city’s flourishing restaurant community, and is widely regarded as a leading farm-to-table, classic American restaurant. Dissen is also the creator of the state’s first-ever fast casual, farm-to-table eatery: Billy D’s Fried Chicken, and maintains three locations at The North Carolina Zoo, Wake Forest University, and Elon University. Dissen also founded Haymaker in uptown Charlotte, N.C. in 2017 building the upscale eatery into an award-winning restaurant, and ushering in Charlotte’s now-booming culinary arts scene. In 2023, William sold Haymaker to focus efforts on his newest restaurant concept, Little Gem, as well as his much-anticipated cookbook: “Thoughtful Cooking: Recipes Rooted In the New South.”Published by W.W. Norton Countryman Press, the book will be released in April 2024.
William’s love for the region and unique efforts in the culinary arts caught the eye of Celebrity Chef Gordon Ramsay, who Chef William then hosted in Asheville on Ramsay’s NatGeo TV show, “Gordon Ramsay: Uncharted, Smoky Mountains.” The episode featured William touring Ramsay through the forest and rivers of Southern Appalachia, and concluded with the two chefs competing in a peer-reviewed cook-off, where William beat Ramsay for the first and only time in the show’s three seasons. The episode is what led Chef Ramsay to proclaim William as the “one of the best chefs in the country and the most sustainable chef on the planet.” His titles also include, Seafood Watch Ambassador to The Monterey Bay Aquarium in California, and Official Ambassador for Le Creuset and Mountain Valley Spring Water.
A career in sustainable culinary arts led Dissen to become an advocate for food policy on Capitol Hill starting in 2010, where he’s lobbied to Congress about the importance of passing legislation, such as The Farm Bill, The Childhood Nutrition Reauthorization Act, and The Magnuson-Stevens Fishery Conservation and Management Act. The Barack Obama administration lauded William as a, “White House Champion of Change for Sustainable Seafood” for his work to create healthier oceans. He also serves in the American Chefs Corps in the U.S. State Department, which sees him traveling around the world to promote American food culture and sustainability practices.
For more about Chef Dissen and his culinary ventures, please visit
www.marketplace-restaurant.
YouTube: Soul Food Scholar Channel
About Adrian Miller
Adrian Miller is a food writer, James Beard Award winner, attorney, former politico, and certified barbecue judge who lives in Denver, Colorado. Adrian is featured in the Netflix hit High on the Hog: How African American Cuisine Transformed America.
Bibliography
Miller’s first book, Soul Food: The Surprising Story of an American Cuisine, One Plate at a Time won the James Beard Foundation Award for Scholarship and Reference in 2014. His second book, The President’s Kitchen Cabinet: The Story of the African Americans Who Have Fed Our First Families, From the Washingtons to the Obamas was published on President’s Day 2017. It was a finalist for a 2018 NAACP Image Award for “Outstanding Literary Work – Non-Fiction,” and the 2018 Colorado Book Award for History. Adrian’s third book, Black Smoke: African Americans and the United States of Barbecue won the 2022 James Beard Award for Reference, History, and Scholarship and the 2022 Colorado Book Award for History. It was a finalist for the 2022 International Association of Culinary Professionals Literary & Historical Writing Award.
Awards
In 2018, Adrian was awarded the Ruth Fertel “Keeper of the Flame Award” by the Southern Foodways Alliance, in recognition of his work on African American foodways. In 2019, Adrian received the Judge Henry N. and Helen T. Graven award from Wartburg College in Waverly, Iowa, for being “an outstanding layperson, whose life is nurtured and guided by a strong sense of Christian calling, and who is making a significant contribution to community, church, and our society.” In 2022, Adrian received an Honorary Doctorate from the Denver Institute for Urban Studies and Adult College.
Bio
Adrian received an A.B in International Relations from Stanford University in 1991, and a J.D. from the Georgetown University Law Center in 1995. From 1999 to 2001, Adrian served as a special assistant to President Bill Clinton with his Initiative for One America – the first free-standing office in the White House to address issues of racial, religious and ethnic reconciliation. Adrian went on to serve as a senior policy analyst for Colorado Governor Bill Ritter Jr. From 2004 to 2010, he served on the board for the Southern Foodways Alliance. In June 2019, Adrian lectured in the Masters of Gastronomy program at the Università di Scienze Gastronomiche (nicknamed the “Slow Food University”) in Pollenzo, Italy. He is currently the executive director of the Colorado Council of Churches and, as such, is the first African American, and the first layperson, to hold that position. Adrian is also the co-project director and lead curator for the forthcoming “Proclaiming Colorado’s Black History” exhibit at the Museum of Boulder.
Anne grew up in southwest Virginia where, in her early years, her family had a large beef farm. When the family quit farming due to economics, she learned, with encouragement from her parents, how to grow a vegetable garden. After attending Brevard College for 2 years, she started learning about organic agriculture by working on different farms in WNC and western Massachusetts.
Anne and her husband, Aaron own a farm located in Leicester, NC on 70 acres of family farm land. The farm is home to a heard of Red Devon cattle, a Jersey milk cow, a flock of chickens, and several acres of vegetable-growing bottom-land. We strive to produce food that is healthier for all of us raised in a manner easier on the environment.
Elizabeth (Liz) Cox is an Atmospheric Sciences senior at UNCA with a Climatology focus. She will graduate with a B.S. in May of 2024. Liz plans to combine her new science skills with her background in events. For example, her recent past work brought funding to three California cities to pilot neighborhood-wide disaster resiliency programs. Liz is interested in helping climate scientists make connections that accelerate innovative ideas, build new partnerships and technologies, improve equity and inclusion, and empower vulnerable communities. She works to support scientifically informed societal decision-making.
Liz began her events journey in the high-end wedding industry, designing receptions in stunning locations like the Biltmore Estate and the Grove Park Inn. As a producer, Liz has curated multi-day immersive events and retreats throughout western North Carolina since 2013. She has orchestrated performances, scientific conferences, and intimate concerts in over 40 US states.
Currently, within NCICS Engagement and Outreach department, Liz is working on several upcoming events.
Liz has called Weaverville, NC home since 2006. She is a mother and enjoys spending time with her family. In her free time, she enjoys live theater, floral design, yoga, and kayaking.
Jenny Dissen is the Corporate Relations and Partnerships lead at NCICS, where she facilitates collaborations and partnerships across academia, government, public, private, and other sectors to inspire innovative use and application of environmental data. In this engagement role, she provides strategic support to the NOAA NCEI Information Services and Assessments activities and works closely with the NCICS Director on innovative activities in the use, application and access to NOAA and other environmental data.
She serves as the NCICS engagement lead for the NOAA Big Data Program and as program manager for the U.S. Department of State and NOAA U.S.-India Partnership for Climate Resilience on high resolution climate models and projections, and is part of collaborative research project on climate information for the real-estate sector. Most recently, she also contributed to the State of North Carolina’s climate science report and resiliency plan.
Prior to joining NCICS, Ms. Dissen was with Accenture’s Utilities Practice in energy delivery and business transformation and supported the development of their Climate Change and Sustainability practice in 2008. The latter led to her work as a regional program manager with the William J. Clinton Foundation in their Clinton Climate Initiative in Southeast Asia.
Ms. Dissen has a Master’s degree in Civil Engineering – Environmental Systems Analysis, and a Bachelor’s degree in Environmental Engineering, both from NC State University. Recent certificates are in Climate Change and Society from the UNC Asheville Masters in Liberal Arts Program and Harvard Business School Executive Education Program on Global Energy Seminars. Currently, she serves on the Electric Power Research Institute Advisory Council, is the co-chair of the American Meteorological Society Committee on Partnerships, and regionally supports the NC School of Science and Mathematics, the Asheville Museum of Science and, the Collider, a climate innovation center.
Laura Lengnick has worked for a just transformation of U.S. food and farming for more than 30 years. Her research in soil health and sustainable farming systems was nationally recognized with a USDA Secretary’s Honor Award in 2002 and she served as a lead author of the 2013 USDA report, Climate Change and Agriculture in the United States: Effects and Adaptation. The second edition of her award-winning book, Resilient Agriculture: Cultivating Food Systems for a Changing Climate (2022), explores climate change, resilience and the future of food through the adaptation stories of some of America’s best sustainable, organic, regenerative and climate-smart farmers and ranchers. Laura owns Cultivating Resilience, LLC, and serves as the Director of Agriculture at the Glynwood Center for Regional Food and Farming in Cold Spring, NY. She resides in Asheville, NC
