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For many of us, Wednesday is Hump Day. But for Hooni Kim, it’s Kimchi Day. At his Michelin-starred New York City restaurant, Danji, the Korean chef and his staff spin 40 heads of cabbage into the spicy, belovedly funky fermented dish. It’s an event that arrests all senses, which is why, Kim says, “I like scheduling things on Wednesdays” to get some fresh air.Kim didn’t go cabbage-crazy overnight. Although he was born in Seoul, he was first classically trained at the French Culinary Institute and earned his stripes at Daniel, Daniel Boulud's world-famous French flagship in New York. At around 11:30 PM, after a hectic evening shift, Boulud often ordered a special dining room to be set for a 20-course dinner. His guests were some of the best chefs in the world. “It’s not like that anymore,” Kim says. But Kim can still cook around the clock, a drive that would allow him to become a successful restaurateur in his own right.While working as a chef at Masa, one of New York’s finest Asian restaurants, Kim was inspired to recreate the flavors of his childhood travels to Korea on his own time. When his parents weren’t using their apartment on the weekends, he’d open up a so-called "private kitchen": free at first, for his friends, until they started booking him for parties and it became profitable. Kim eventually realized he could turn his extracurricular activities into a real restaurant. Using the money he and his wife had saved for 10 years to buy a house, he did just that, and opened Danji. "I should've been more terrified, but I was too busy to be terrified," Kim says.It was a risk that reaped big rewards. Kim’s classic French treatment of Korean ingredients and flavors, in dishes like kimchi poutine and Korean-BBQ style braised short ribs with pearl onions and pine nuts, was something New York had never seen. In 2012 Danji became the first Korean restaurant to receive a Michelin star; not long after, he opened his second restaurant, Hanjan, further uptown. The Times heralded Kim as "the city's leading interpreter of Korean cuisine."And now he’s your gateway to the fiery, vibrant, umami-rich cuisine of his birthplace. Kim will teach you how to make many authentic Korean essentials, including spicy pork belly, napa cabbage kimchi (don’t worry, it’s a one-cabbage version), seafood soft tofu stew, and an exquisite pot of short-grain rice—a must-have for nearly every Korean meal. The preparation is simple, the food stunning, and the instructor, ideal.Hooni's Restaurants:Hanjan (New York, NY) Danji (New York, NY)

According to Rachael Ray, she grew up in food. "My first vivid memory is watching my mom in a restaurant kitchen. She was flipping something with a spatula. I tried to copy her and ended up grilling my right thumb! I was 3 or 4," says Rachael, who insists that cooking is a way of life she was simply born into. "Everyone on both sides of my family cooks." Rachael has parlayed that birthright into a wildly successful career as an iconic Food Network television personality, bestselling cookbook author and editor–in-chief of her own lifestyle magazine. In the fall of 2007, she launched a hugely successful syndicated daytime program, Rachael Ray. Showcasing Rachael's warmth, energy and boundless curiosity, the show — produced by CBS Television Distribution and Oprah Winfrey's Harpo Productions—invites viewers to experience life the Rachael Ray way. Credited with getting America back in the kitchen with her easy approach to cooking, Rachael takes the same philosophy — finding simple solutions to everyday problems — beyond the kitchen and into all aspects of the show. Growing up in a family steeped in culinary tradition, Rachael was exposed to a wide range of cooking techniques, from her maternal grandfather who grew and cooked everything his family of 12 ate, to her dad's family, which embraced the food-rich traditions of Louisiana. The Ray family owned several restaurants on Cape Cod, Massachusetts, before relocating to upstate New York, where her mother worked as the food supervisor for a restaurant chain. "I was surrounded by all different styles of cooking and worked in the food service industry in just about every capacity you can imagine," Rachael says. By her early twenties, Rachael developed a hankering for city life and moved to New York where she landed at Macy's, working first at the candy counter and then as manager of the Fresh Foods Department. She credits her two years there for giving her an education in gourmet foods. After Macy's, Rachael helped open Agata & Valentina, the prestigious New York gourmet marketplace, where she was the store manager and buyer. Despite the exciting lifestyle in the foodie circles of New York City, Rachael decided to move back to upstate New York to manage pubs and restaurants at the famed Sagamore Resort on Lake George. From there, she was recruited by Cowan & Lobel, a large gourmet market in Albany, to be their food buyer and eventually their "chef." As a way to increase grocery sales during the holidays, Rachael created a series of cooking classes, including a course promising to teach "30-Minute Mediterranean Meals," which exploded in popularity. The CBS station in Albany-Schenectady, WRGB-TV, discovered Rachael and signed her on to do a weekly "30-Minute Meals" segment for the evening news. Nominated for two regional Emmys in its first year, the segment was a major success; a companion cookbook sold 10,000 copies locally during the holidays. With that, a franchise was born! Rachael's television work grew to include a series of lifestyle and travel segments as well as a long-term relationship with Food Network, hosting shows such as Rachael's Vacation, Tasty Travels, $40 A Day, Inside Dish and 30-Minute Meals, the latter of which earned Rachael a 2006 Daytime Emmy Award for Outstanding Service Show and a nomination for Outstanding Service Show Host. In addition to her television endeavors, Rachael has turned her "30-Minute Meals" concept into a bestselling series of cookbooks, including 30-Minute Meals, 30-Minute Meals 2, 30-Minute Meals: Get Togethers, Comfort Foods, Veggie Meals, The Open House Cookbook, Cooking Round The Clock, Cooking Rocks! Rachael Ray 30-Minute Meals for Kids, Rachael Ray Best Eats In Town On $40 A Day, Rachael Ray 30-Minute Get Real Meals, Rachael Ray 365: No Repeats A Year of Deliciously Different Dinners, Express Lane Meals, 2-4-6-8: Great Meals for Couples or Crowds, Just in Time: All-New 30-Minute Meal, Super-Fast 15-Minute Meals, Slow It Down 60-Minute Meals, Yum-o! The Family Cookbook, Rachael Ray's Big Orange Book, The Book of Burger, My Year in Meals and Week in a Day, among others. Taking the can-do spirit of her television shows and books, Rachael launched a new lifestyle magazine in 2005 bearing her vision called Every Day with Rachael Ray. With great food at its heart, the new full-size glossy magazine, for which Rachael serves as editor-in-chief, covers much more than food. The magazine offers smart and easy recipes for an array of delicious foods, as well as practical advice on food destinations and entertaining. Through the magazine, Rachael takes readers around the country to meet people who love food — from top celebrities and authentic artisans to great home cooks. In 2007, Every Day with Rachael Ray was named Launch of the Year by Advertising Age and by Advertising Week in 2007. In the fall of 2007, Rachael launched the daily one-hour, nationally syndicated show Rachael Ray, which scored the highest rated premiere for a syndicated talk show since the 2002 launch of Dr. Phil. It immediately secured its position among the top ranked daytime shows and was the #1 syndicated strip launched in the 2006-07 season. The daytime talker was immediately embraced by critics across the country. Time magazine wrote, "You can't attract her kind of following by just being accessible. Ray, like Regis Philbin, is gifted at being on television." Newsweek praised Rachael as being "the most down-to-earth TV star on the planet..." People magazine named Rachael Ray one of the top 10 shows of 2006 and Forbes voted her #2 Most Trusted Celebrity. In its freshman year, Rachael Ray won a 2007 Daytime Emmy Award and was nominated for six others including Outstanding Talk Show and Outstanding Talk Show Host. Adding to the list of achievements, Television Week named her Syndication Personality of the Year in 2007 and Businessweek honored her as one of the Best Leaders of 2006. The positive praise from the press and the remarkable season one ratings confirmed Rachael Ray as a syndication success. "My life has been a total accident — a very happy, wonderful accident that I didn't and couldn't have planned," says Rachael. Despite her growing celebrity she is determined to stay grounded and hold on to her down-to-earth values. She still spends as much time as she can at her cabin in the Adirondacks with her husband, John, her family — the "research team" — and her beloved pit bull Isaboo. In the spring of 2007, Rachael Ray launched a nonprofit organization, Yum-o! that empowers kids and their families to develop healthy relationships with food and cooking. By providing the tools to create easy, affordable and delicious meals, Yum-o! is changing the way America eats. Yum-o!'s three work areas include educating kids and their families about cooking, feeding hungry American kids and funding cooking education and scholarships. For more information about the Yum-o! organization, please visit www.yum-o.org.

Jenn Louis loves to travel: she’s globetrotted her way through Europe, North America, South America, and even spent a few months on a dairy kibbutz in Israel. The food she cooks is just as adventurous and wide-ranging—which is why hummus and labneh sneak onto the menu with bucatini, cavatelli, and seasonal Pacific Northwest fruits and vegetables at her Portland establishment, Lincoln Restaurant. Of course, that menu changes almost every day, based on what’s fresh and looking good at the market. Diners might move from a starter of grilled octopus to a main dish of delicata squash with tahini and hazelnuts before finishing with popcorn panna cotta: a trip from the Pacific Northwest to Italy by way of Israel, but with a distinctive American accent.Named one of Food & Wine's "Best New Chefs" in 2012, Louis has competed on Bravo's Top Chef Masters and has earned two nominations for the James Beard award (“Best Chef: Northwest”). Louis’s debut cookbook, Pasta by Hand, shows off her mastery of delicious pastas and sauces to match. Recently, she’s decided to explore her love of Middle Eastern food in depth by focusing on Jewish fare like challah, brisket, and latkes, all with her signature style of straightforward sophistication.Louis prizes restraint and control in cooking: “I don’t like too many ingredients or ideas jammed together,” she said to Food & Wine. “You lose the individual ingredients; they can’t be appreciated.” Accordingly, her Panna recipes are faithful, simple renditions of classics, but delicious enough to wow restaurant-goers and dinner party guests alike.Jenn's Restaurant:Lincoln Restaurant (Portland, OR) Jenn's Book:Pasta by Hand (2015)