The Southern Fork

Tucked under street level in the shadow of the South Carolina State Capitol in Columbia, SC, is The Whig , one of the best bars (in my opinion) in the South. There are good cocktails, string lights, taxidermy decor, gouda mac and cheese and burgers if you get hungry, and if you happen in on the right night, co-owner Will Green will be behind the bar, mixing cocktails and keeping the vibe chill wit...

There's something of a relaxed grace about Florence, AL. It's approachable, artistic, yet with a definite deep South accent, and Odette , a restaurant nestled in an historic storefront in its downtown, is the culinary embodiment of that aesthetic. That style comes from owner Celeste Pillow and Chef Josh Quick, who's been at the helm since it opened in 2013. Although Josh didn't grow up in the town...

It takes close to 1200 bees to make a 16-ounce jar of honey. Each one of those bees, through its choice of flower nectar, contributes to the unique flavor profile of a honey, a profile that can vary season to season, even if the location of the hive remains the same. That unique character -- the literal taste of a place -- is only preserved if the honey arrives to your kitchen pantry 100% raw, and...

Coast Brewing has been making high-quality beer in the South Carolina Lowcountry for so long, it's easy to take the availability and the quality of its beer for granted. It's sincerely become part of Charleston, just as its former taproom -- really a few taps on the side of a walk-in cooler -- became sort of a community hub for a pint and a chat. That availability, quality, and community has been...

Trowbridge's in Florence, AL is a happy place. It's a place of cherries on top with extra whip cream, a menu of ice cream flavors readable from any seat in the house, children's eyes lighting up to the phrase "whatever you want," and a bowl of fresh bananas just waiting to be split. The stools and booths are a retro teal color, not because the owners are being nostalgic, but because they've been t...

"Supply chain" is a buzz phrase right now, but let's not forget that one, there isn't just "one chain," and two, that it's not a faceless thing -- it's people. Mark Overbay of Big Spoon Roasters in Durham, NC was inspired by the unavailable supply of peanut butter when he was stationed in the Peace Corps, and it led him down plenty of paths to sweet success. Big Spoon's philosophy is based on the...

At this point, Chef Tim Hontzas of Johnny's Restaurant in Homewood, AL is used to mistakenly being called Johnny by folks who don't know him. His restaurant is proudly named after his grandfather, Johnny, who migrated to New Orleans in 1921 with $17 in his pocket and went on to open three successful restaurants in Mississippi, the last being his namesake. Members of Tim's family, including his fat...

Stories abound everywhere in the culinary South, even tucked into business parks in Pelham, AL. That's where Alex Sherman and Jeff Daniels, who, along with the other members of the team of Non-Fiction Coffee , are changing the coffee scene for central Alabama. They view the supply chain from a bottom-up perspective, where producers are elevated and every contributor is seen as a stakeholder. See,...

If you're doing your first visit to Red Orchids China Bistro in Charleston, SC correctly, you'll walk in a guest and leave as a friend. Owners Kelly and Tony Chu, two-first generation Chinese Americans, fell in love sharing a single dream of opening a restaurant.  They opened Red Orchids in 2003, taking on family style Chinese-American cuisine in a city with a decidedly Southern palate. The restau...

Chris Coleman was never far from Southern food. He spent summers on his grandparents farm in Mississippi, and was 14 when he started his first industry job at a local fish camp in a suburb of Charlotte, NC, working his way up through the ranks from busser to kitchen expediter. While a culinary student in Central Piedmont Community College's =, Chris took a job as a line cook at the McNinch House,...

Forty-two miles south of Charleston, SC and home to a little more than 2,000 people, Edisto Island is a place where everyone knew everyone else when Emily Meggett was growing up. Today she calls it a "little slice of heaven," and says that when the side door is open, people know that there is food in her kitchen. And there is almost always food, as Miss Emily cooks "big," as she calls it, cooking...

When it comes to beer, we talk a lot about hops, but what about barley? Aaron Goss of Carolina Malt House in Cleveland, NC was a hobby beermaker who started to malt his own barley for fun while obtaining his law degree and MBA from Wake Forest University. After he learned that almost all of the beer consumed in the Carolinas is made from barley grown thousands of miles away, this native of Rowan C...

Chef Ashley Boyd's self-written tagline on Instagram is "restaurant kid for life." She is the culinary director of 300 East in Charlotte, NC, the family business where she spent long afternoons as a child and later worked in various positions as age allowed. After graduating from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago, Ashley quickly returned to restaurant work and worked in spots in Chicago,...

There is some delicious restaurant cooking happening in Charlotte, NC, and when I talk to many of the chefs responsible for it, more often than not, they point to Freshlist as one of their day-to-day partners making that possible. CEO Jesse Leadbetter was in sports licensing when he started growing his own food and it opened his eyes to the supply chain issues connecting Carolina farms to Carolina...

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...

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-starr...

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...

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, th...

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 Islan...

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 li...

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...

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, teach...

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...

On an unassuming street in the Starland district of Savannah, Ga., is Back in the Day Bakery , a bakery that's not only one of the best in the country, but one that is very close to my heart owned by Cheryl and Griffith Day. I interviewed the couple on The Southern Fork in 2016, but this episode I'm back to chat with Cheryl about her first solo project, Cheryl Day's Treasury of Southern Baking . S...

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.