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A character-driven documentary and cooking series that takes viewers inside the life of Chef Vivian Howard, who, with her husband Ben Knight, left the big city to open a fine dining restaurant in small-town Eastern North Carolina.
PBS
60
30 min
Chef Vivian Howard and her husband Ben leave New York to open a restaurant in her small North Carolina hometown. Vivian revisits the Southern tradition of “putting up” corn and shares her method for making smoked corn relish. As the episode concludes, a devastating setback threatens their new life.
Sep 7, 2013
Vivian and Ben rebuild their restaurant against the backdrop of the Southern harbinger of spring, the strawberry. Their twins go on their first strawberry-picking excursion, and Vivian and a friend develop a recipe for coconut cornbread strawberry shortcake with basil whipped cream.
Sep 14, 2013
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 of the big changes to the restaurant's menus is the addition of a section called "Pimp My Grits," where Vivian exalts the lowly, quintessentially Southern ingredient in four distinct ways.
Oct 1, 2013
Vivian goes about christening the restaurant's new "whole animal, no waste" program with two little pigs from Warren Brothers' farm. She uses everything - including the skin - and, on her father's recommendation, demonstrates how to make sweet potatoes with cracklins.
Oct 8, 2013
Vivian preps for a Southern Foodways Alliance luncheon. Food enthusiasts from around the country are coming to study BBQ & Vivian plans to serve them the ultimate tomato sandwich. She weighs the risk of serving something so simple to this discerning crowd, but in her gut she believes it will be the highlight of their trip.
Oct 15, 2013
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 across the street from Chef & the Farmer in hopes it will be a place that adds character and variety to the tiny town's "dining scene." Vivian and her dad orchestrate their family's first-ever oyster roast and are blown away by how much everyone enjoys it.
Oct 22, 2013
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 Gator, her grape suppliers, and makes homemade wine. Back at the restaurant, Vivian makes a pizza with mulled muscadines, and Ben tests this new creation during their first stressful pizza night in the wine shop.
Oct 29, 2013
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 Savannah River. Glenn explains Anson Mills' efforts to save heirloom grains and discusses the importance of ingredient biodiversity. Glenn's passion inspires Vivian to host a "rice dinner" at Chef & the Farmer, where each course centers around this grain. Scarlett, Vivian's mom, schools her daughter on how to make the chicken and rice she grew up eating.
Nov 5, 2013
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, a pack of salted peanuts dumped into a Pepsi in a glass bottle. At the restaurant, Vivian translates the snack into Pepsi glazed pork belly with country ham braised peanuts. Vivian reinvents the popular Southern snack, boiled peanuts, for the local farmers' market.
Nov 12, 2013
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 customers. Vivian and her mom, Scarlett, make her grandmother’s candied yams and Vivian later re-imagines these for the restaurant with texture, sorghum and pecans.
Nov 19, 2013
Vivian spends the morning with her neighbors, the Mills brothers, participating in their 100-year-old, all-male family tradition of making collard kraut. Vivian visits Warren at Brother’s farm to talk about the Eastern Carolina ingredient with a cult following, the Cabbage Collard.
Nov 21, 2013
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 while savoring his cup of the thick liquid annoys his wife.
Nov 28, 2013
Vivian visits Broad Slab Distillery, where they talk about the art and soul of white lightning. The restaurant’s mixologist works moonshine into several new drinks, while the restaurant staff struggles through the holiday party season. They end the season with a party of their own at Ben and Vivian’s new house, with AppleJack Moonshine cocktails making a guest appearance.
Dec 5, 2013
Herself
Himself
