A Chef's Life

Chef Vivian Howard and her husband Ben leave New York to open a restaurant in her small North Carolina hometown. Vivian revisits the Southern traditio...

Vivian and Ben rebuild their restaurant against the backdrop of the Southern harbinger of spring, the strawberry. Their twins go on their first strawb...

The restaurant gears up for a practice service when the new equipment and new menu will be tested in real time - but nothing is going as planned. One...

Vivian goes about christening the restaurant's new "whole animal, no waste" program with two little pigs from Warren Brothers' farm. She uses everythi...

Vivian preps for a Southern Foodways Alliance luncheon. Food enthusiasts from around the country are coming to study BBQ & Vivian plans to serve them...

Vivian goes to Cedar Island to explore the new culture of farm-raised oysters in the Southeast. She and Ben share plans of opening an oyster bar acros...

Ben, Vivian and the twins pick muscadine grapes at a small local vineyard while learning the history of this native grape. Vivian visits Mike and Gato...

Vivian travels to Columbia, South Carolina, to meet with Glenn Roberts of Anson Mills and learns about Carolina heirloom rice growing in fields on the...

Vivian visits neighbor Marty Harper's peanut farm just before and during harvest. Vivian's dad introduces Ben and Vivian to the old school break snack...

Vivian introduces us to Rob and Amy Hill, proprietors of one of the largest sweet potato farms in the country and two of the restaurant’s best custome...

Vivian spends the morning with her neighbors, the Mills brothers, participating in their 100-year-old, all-male family tradition of making collard kra...

Vivian and Ben go to Maple View Dairy to pick up product for the restaurant. They talk buttermilk with the dairy’s manager, and the noise Ben makes wh...

Vivian visits Broad Slab Distillery, where they talk about the art and soul of white lightning. The restaurant’s mixologist works moonshine into sever...