photo by Baxter Miller
Vivian Howard is an award-winning cookbook author, TV personality, chef and restaurateur. Her first cookbook, Deep Run Roots, is a New York Times bestseller and was named “Cookbook of the Year” by the IACP. She created and stars in public television shows Somewhere South and A Chef’s Life, for which she has won Peabody, Emmy and James Beard awards. Vivian runs the restaurants Chef & the Farmer in Kinston, NC; Benny’s Big Time in Wilmington, NC; and Handy & Hot and Lenoir, both in Charleston, SC. In October 2020, Vivian released her second cookbook, This Will Make it Taste Good: A New Path to Simple Cooking. This year, Vivian launched Viv’s Fridge — a network of attendent-less, smart-refrigerators stocked with next-level prepared meals from her kitchen at Chef and the Farmer.