The Judges
Julia Turshen & Cleo Brock-Abraham
With experience in books and magazines, television and website production, professional cooking, writing, and photography, Julia Turshen and Cleo Brock-Abraham wonderfully combine practical skills and inspiring passion. Their production company, Weird & Ravenous, produces fresh, evocative content about food and the relationships it inspires. With a deep love for food and a wise understanding of the many factors that go into making it meaningful, Weird & Ravenous aims to stir the pot.
Danny & Shauna Ahern
Daniel Fitzgerald Ahern has chef experience at a variety of restaurants from coast to coast, from Gramercy Tavern in New York, to Papillon in Denver. He received national recognition when he was the executive chef at Impromptu Wine Bar in Seattle for turning the restaurant gluten-free. He now cooks at The Hardware Store on Vashon Island, where he lives with Shauna and their daughter.
Shauna James Ahern writes the popular food blog Gluten-Free Girl and the Chef, which was named one of the best food sites in the world by Gourmet.com, Bon Appetit.com, and the London Times, as well as being named one of the 20 best blogs by and for women by the Sunday Telegraph. Gluten-Free Girl and the Chef won Best Food Blog with a Theme in the World in 2006 and receives thousands of hits a day. Her book, Gluten-Free Girl: How I Found the Food That Loves Me Back and How You Can Too (Wiley and Sons) is now in paperback. Her latest book, Gluten-Free Girl and the Chef: A Love Story in 100 Tempting Recipes, written with her husband Daniel, was published in the fall of 2010.
Kurt Andersen
Kurt Andersen is the author of three critically acclaimed novels -- most recently True Believers, and the earlier bestsellers Heyday and Turn of the Century – as well as the books Reset and The Real Thing. He also writes for television, film and the stage. In addition, he's host and co-creator of Studio 360, the Peabody Award-winning public radio program, and contributes regularly to Vanity Fair and The New York Times. Previously, he co-founded Spy, as well as Very Short List and Inside.com, served as editor-in-chief of New York, editorial director of Colors, design and architecture critic for Time, and has been a staff writer and columnist for The New Yorker.
Cathy Barrow
Cathy Barrow blogs at Mrs. Wheelbarrow’s Kitchen about all manner of home food preservation from canning to charcuterie, cheesemaking to fermenting. Her writing has appeared in the New York Times, Washington Post, NPR’s The Salt, Garden and Gun and on Food52. Mrs. Wheelbarrow’s Practical Pantry will be published by W. W. Norton in late 2014.
Marco Canora
Marco Canora is the chef and owner of Hearth, Terroir, Terroir TriBeCa and Terroir Murray Hill in Manhattan, and the newly opened Terroir Park Slope in Brooklyn. He developed an appreciation for good food thanks to his mother’s seasonal, Italian cooking and his extensive travels. Marco got his start in the New York City restaurant scene working under Tom Colicchio at Gramercy Tavern. Colicchio made him the restaurant's sous chef before selecting him to open Craft in 2001. During Marco's time at Craft, the restaurant earned the James Beard Award for Best New Restaurant and a three-star review from The New York Times. In 2003, Marco partnered with Paul Grieco to open Hearth, where Marco's seasonal American cooking with Italian influences has earned a loyal following and critical acclaim, including a James Beard Award nomination for Best New Restaurant. In 2008, they opened Terroir, a wine bar just steps away from Hearth. A second location opened in TriBeCa in 2010, followed by one in Murray Hill in September 2011 and in Park Slope in September 2012. Marco's first cookbook Salt to Taste (Rodale Books, October 2009) was nominated in 2010 for the James Beard Foundation Cookbook Award in the General Cooking category.
Melissa Clark
Melissa Clark is a food columnist for The New York Times, and has written for Bon Appetit, Food & Wine, Every Day with Rachel Ray, and Martha Stewart, amongst others. Her acclaimed cookbook In the Kitchen with A Good Appetite was released in the fall of 2010 with essays and recipes based on her popular New York Times Dining section column A Good Appetite. Clark's most recent book Cook This Now, a personal collection of seasonally driven, inventive comfort food, came out in October 2011 from Hyperion. All told, Clark has written 32 other cookbooks, many of them in collaboration with some of New York’s most celebrated chefs, including Daniel Boulud (Braise), David Bouley (East of Paris), Claudia Fleming (The Last Course), Bruce and Eric Bromberg (The Blue Ribbon Cookbook), and White House Pastry Chef Bill Yosses (The Perfect Finish). Her collaboration with chef Peter Berley, The Modern Vegetarian Kitchen, received both a James Beard award and Julia Child Cookbook award in 2000. Clark was born and raised in Brooklyn, New York, where she now lives with her husband, Daniel Gercke and their daughter Dahlia.
Wylie Dufresne
After attending college in Maine, Wylie Dufresne enrolled at the French Culinary Institute in New York and was then employed in various Jean-Georges restaurants from 1993 until 1999. In 1999, he became the first chef at 71 Clinton Fresh Food. Dufresne opened wd~50 in April of 2003, and since, it has been awarded three stars by the New York Times, and one star each year since 2006 by the Michelin Guide. Wylie has been nominated for multiple James Beard Awards, including “Best Chef New York” for six consecutive years beginning in 2007.
Meredith Erickson, David McMillan & Frédéric Morin
Meredith Erickson has written for The New York Times, Elle, The National Post, and Lucky Peach. She has also been Managing Editor (Maisonneuve), Project Editor (Phaidon) and Production Manager (Spafax) for various magazines, campaigns, and television programs. She is the co-author of The Art of Living According to Joe Beef (Ten Speed Press) and the upcoming Le Pigeon Cookbook (Ten Speed Press). She also project-edited Ferran Adria’s The Family Meal (Phaidon Press). She splits her time between Montreal and London.
David McMillan is the co-owner/chef of Joe Beef and Liverpool House. Born and raised in Quebec City, David has been holding court in many of Montreal’s classic restaurants for close to twenty years. He still practices the cuisine Bourgeoise he learned from his mentor, Nicholas Jongleux, and from living in the Burgundy region of France. When David isn’t at the restaurants, he can be found painting at the studio in Saint Henri or spending time at his cottage in Kamouraska, Quebec, with his wife Julie and their two daughters.
Frédéric Morin is the co-owner/chef of Joe Beef and Liverpool House. He attended L’Ecole Hoteliere des Laurentides, worked at Jean-Talon Market selling peppers and onions, and served as garde-manger at Toqué! and chef de cuisine at Globe before opening Joe Beef. When he’s not gardening or tinkering in his workshop, or at his restaurants, Fred can be found at home in Montreal with his wife (and the third partner in the restaurants) Allison, and their two sons.
Bryant Gumbel
Bryant Gumbel is well-known for hosting the 22-time emmy-award-winning show "Real Sports With Bryant Gumbel," HBO Sports' monthly magazine-style program that explores the issues, controversies and personalities that are prevalent in the world of sports. His work there ranged from a report on the troubles in horse-racing’s Jockeys Guild, which earned him an award for “Outstanding Edited Sports Series/Anthologies,” to compelling interviews with NFL star Plaxico Burress and pro-golfer Phil Mickelson. In addition, Bryant has reported on underground topics such as the largely unknown world of women’s bodybuilding and excessive drinking at NFL games.
Gumbel hosted "NBC TODAY" for 15 years, longer than anyone in the show's history; he also hosted NBC's "Public Eye" and "The Early Show." Honored countless times for outstanding reportage and promoting diversity in the entertainment industry, Gumbel is one of television's most accomplished broadcasters.
Fergus Henderson
Fergus Henderson was born in London in 1963, his father a keen diner, his mother a keen cook. He studied architecture before his thoughts turned to cooking. Shortly after his restaurant, St. John, opened its doors, Fergus received an MBE for his services to gastronomy. He was awarded his first Michelin Star in 2009, and in April 2011, he opened his first hotel, the St. John Hotel in London’s Chinatown.
Critical acclaim for Fergus's brand of simple, pared down cooking followed, and St. John has won more that its fair share of awards and high rankings in national and international listings. Fergus published Nose to Tail Eating -- A Kind of British Cooking in 1999, which garnered much acclaim and won the Andre Simon award for food writing.
A follow up book, Beyond Nose to Tail Eating was published in 2007, co-written with St. John's head baker, Justin Piers Gellatly. Fergus enjoys a culinary reputation beyond the two restaurants and the hotel, however; he continues to develop projects all in the name of nose to tail eating, the basic principle which best sums up Fergus's approach to food and the spirit with which one should approach not only cooking but the dining experience as a whole.
Tom Hirschfeld
Tom Hirschfeld is owner and operator of Bona Fide Farm Food and Foodquarterly. He's a father to two beautiful girls, husband to one kick ass wife, chef, photojournalist, author, salesman and truck driver. Oh, and he's an avid eater. Tom recently published Foodquarterly Winter Edition 2013 for iPads. (He's really proud of this one at the moment.) He writes and photographs Sunday Dinners at Food52, and his blog, Bona Fide Farm Food, was a finalist for the 2012 IACP Best Food Blog award.
Nathan Williams & Julie Pointer
Nathan Williams is the founding editor of Kinfolk Magazine, a lifestyle and entertaining magazine which represents the work of a growing community of artists with a shared interest in small gatherings. The publication is the marriage of an appreciation for art, design, and food as well as a love for spending time with friends and family.
Julie Pointer is the head of Gatherings for the Kinfolk community, organizing dinners across the nation that bring together artists, writers, chefs, artisans, small business owners, and readers to dine at a common table. She also contributes as a writer and features editor for the magazine.
Danny Meyer
Danny Meyer is the CEO of Union Square Hospitality Group, which includes Union Square Cafe, Gramercy Tavern, Blue Smoke, Jazz Standard, Shake Shack, The Modern, Maialino, Untitled, North End Grill, Union Square Events, and Hospitality Quotient, a learning and consulting business. Danny, his restaurants, and chefs have earned an unprecedented 25 James Beard Awards. Danny’s first business book, Setting the Table (HarperCollins, 2006), a New York Times bestseller, examines the power of hospitality in restaurants, business and life. An active national leader in the fight against hunger, Danny has long served on the boards of Share Our Strength and City Harvest. He is equally active in civic affairs, serving on the executive committees of NYC & Co, Union Square Partnership, and the Madison Square Park Conservancy.
James Oseland
James Oseland is the editor-in-chief of Saveur, America’s most critically acclaimed food magazine. Under his editorship, the magazine has won more than 35 awards, including numerous James Beard journalism awards, and two from the American Society of Magazine Editors. His 2006 book, Cradle of Flavor, a memoir with recipes about his time living in Southeast Asia, was named one of the best books of that year by Time Asia, the New York Times, and Good Morning America. He is also a judge on Bravo's Top Chef Masters. James has lived in India and Indonesia and now resides in New York City with his husband, Daniel, and his cat, Sam.
Adam Sachs
Adam Sachs is a Contributing Editor at both Travel + Leisure and Bon Appétit magazines. His column The Obsessivore for Bon Appétit chronicles the culinary questings and unhinged projects of an amateur enthusiast in the kitchen. His work also appears with some regularity in GQ, Details, and The New York Times T Travel Magazine, among others. Nominated four times for James Beard Journalism Awards, Sachs grew up in Kentucky, lives in Manhattan, and is soon moving to Brooklyn with his girlfriend and 14-month-old omnivorous son, William.
Elizabeth Spiridakis
Elizabeth Spiridakis is the Art Director at Bon Appétit magazine. She has worked in magazines for over 10 years and maintains the blog and online shenanigans of White Lightning, which she started over 5 years ago on a whim. She's obsessed with social media and you can follow her on most outlets at @white_lightning.
Stanley Tucci
Stanley Tucci is an award-winning and Oscar-nominated actor, as well as a a writer, director and producer. He has appeared in over 50 films and countless television shows; his work includes Julie & Julia, The Lovely Bones, Road to Perdition, and most recently, blockbuster The Hunger Games: Catching Fire.
Tucci made his first directorial effort with the 1996 film Big Night, which earned him numerous accolades. He continued on to direct several other films, as well as the Broadway play Lend Me a Tenor.
In 2008, Tucci partnered with Steve Buscemi and Wren Arthur to form Olive Productions, a New York-based film and television company. Olive has film projects currently in development at HBO, SONY and Fox Searchlight and is developing a show at AMC.
Tucci released his cookbook, The Tucci Cookbook, in October of 2012 where it reached the New York Times' Best Sellers List.
Chris Ying
Chris Ying is the editor-in-chief of Lucky Peach, a quarterly food magazine he midwifed into being with Dave Chang and Peter Meehan in 2011. He's currently writing the Mission Chinese Food Cookbook with Danny Bowien, and working on a cookbook with Ivan Orkin of Ivan Ramen. His company, Ying Horowitz & Quinn, experiments with new digital media projects like their new iOS app, The Silent History.