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A colossal heap of split oak towers in the backyard of The Skylight Inn in Ayden, North Carolina, the legendary BBQ joint where pitmaster Sam Jones got his start. It’s a fitting monument to the generations his family has been smoking whole hogs, since the 1830s, when his great-great-great-grandfather sold smoked pork out of a covered wagon.The Skylight opened in 1947, and Jones grew up working there alongside his father and grandfather. In many ways, Jones was destined to be a pitmaster, but he was initially hesitant to devote his life to it: “When I was young, I was a little bit embarrassed of Skylight," Sam admitted. That changed after Jones wrote a college term paper on the history of barbecue and realized it wasn’t just about slogging away, elbow-deep in coleslaw: “I saw it no longer as a job, but as a way of life.” Jones dropped out of school to help out back home after his grandfather fell ill, and he never looked back. After the Southern Foodways Alliance made a short film about Skylight, fame followed. In 2003, Skylight Inn was awarded the James Beard "America's Classics" Award, and he opened a second location, Sam Jones BBQ, soon after. He’s traveled the country to tell his family’s story, and it's a heritage you can smell, see, and taste when you cook with him in our BBQ class. “BBQ is a primitive food that doesn’t need a lot of adulteration,” he says. “My family has cooked whole hog BBQ for over 100 years, and you don’t spend the time and energy cooking whole animals over wood to mask it with sauce.” That means when you bite into his pork, cleaved by hand into a pile of juicy meat and crispy skin, you taste pig, smoke, and the slight tang of his iconic Carolina-style vinegar sauce—in that order. Most home cooks are used to grilling on a searing-hot flame. But Sam Jones will show you how to turn down the heat to harness the smoke: it’s what makes the pork succulent, the ribs toothsome but tender, and the chicken moist with skin that’s golden, not burnt. Of course, it wouldn’t be a full-on BBQ without the sides, and Jones’s approach couldn’t be simpler or more satisfying. His cornbread combines only a few ingredients before it's “oven-fried” in bacon fat; his baked beans and sweet slaw are uncomplicated, but represent a long legacy of pitmaster tradition. We know you’ll enjoy not only the true taste of Carolina-style BBQ, but also the BBQ “way of life,” which requires less panache than it does patience. So get those coals smoldering, pull up a chair, and pop open a cold one: a sensational meal awaits!Sam's Restaurants:Sam Jones BBQ (Winterville, NC) The Skylight Inn (Ayden, NC)

Michael Ruhlman has written beautiful books on a number of topics—pediatric heart surgery, boat makers, and boarding schools, to name a few. But his soul, along with many of his most famous titles, seems to lie in food. He champions both the nutritional and emotional value of cooking: “[Cooking]'s just as important and takes just as long as showering,” he told us, “but I’d much rather you didn’t shower.” While making his delicious recipes for Panna, he continually reminded us to spend time with our partners any time we were waiting for the food to finish cooking. We agree with Ruhlman: cooking is essential to living. And to really get the most out of it, Ruhlman wants to make chef-quality food accessible to home cooks. He’s partnered with renowned chef Thomas Keller to write three cookbooks, including The French Laundry Cookbook, and with Chef Brian Polcyn to co-author two books on cured meats. Ruhlman has also written over a dozen of his own cookbooks, on everything from sautéing to schmaltz.Ruhlman came to the Panna studio to take us on a deep dive into one of our most popular ingredients: chicken. After years of cooking with some of America’s best classically trained chefs and editing their recipes, he’s honed all the necessary techniques—from trussing a simple roaster to flattening breasts (with a frying pan!) for an iconic chicken paillard with lemon-caper sauce. From Szechuan to yakitori to three kinds of chicken salad, Ruhlman will show you the many ways this humble bird can truly shine.Michael's Books:Ratio (2010)Grocery (2017) The Making of a Chef (2009)

Mom of four, television host and cookbook author Melissa d’Arabian (www.MelissadArabian.net) embodies family home cooking at its finest. With a lifelong passion for cooking and varied life experiences, Melissa naturally connects with today’s diverse families as she shares empowering food and lifestyle solutions that are part of a bigger story about how to eat well, be a responsible consumer and spend with purpose — all while putting satisfying family meals on the table every day. Her distinctive ability to utilize tried-and-true techniques, smart grocery store budget strategies and superior resource management skills while creating approachable family-friendly recipes as flavorful and elegant as they are affordable have made Melissa a trusted, go-to resource for home cooks everywhere. After she won Season 5 of well-known culinary competition series Food Network Star, Melissa's relatable cooking show Ten Dollar Dinners premiered on Food Network in August 2009. Each episode delivers on her $10 promise: four people, ten bucks, infinite possibilities, and proves a delicious budget-friendly meal can be made without compromise. A natural extension of her popular television series, Melissa's first cookbook, Ten Dollar Dinners: 140 Recipes and Tips to Elevate Simple, Fresh Meals Any Night of the Week(Clarkson Potter, a division of Random House, Inc.), debuted in August 2012 and became an instant New York Times best seller. Melissa also hosts Cooking Channel’s Drop 5 Lbs. with Good Housekeeping, a cooking and lifestyle series that premiered in January 2012 based on the magazine’s popular monthly column. The fresh, simple and healthy recipes she prepares further the show’s mission to make weight loss easier and more manageable. Additionally, Melissa has appeared on highly rated Food Network prime-time series, including The Best Thing I Ever Ate, Chopped, Food Network Challenge and The Best Thing I Ever Made. Raised by a single mother who was putting herself through college and medical school, Melissa grew up in Tucson, Ariz., with a coupon-cutter mentality and on a shoestring budget in a humble home where waste was frowned upon but where cooking together was a favorite pastime, life lessons that have always remained at her core. Melissa received her bachelor’s degree in political science from the University of Vermont, and then spent a year at sea as part of the entertainment staff on cruise ships before going on to earn her M.B.A. at Georgetown University. Her professional career began in consulting, and Melissa eventually worked in corporate finance at Disney in Burbank, Calif., and in merchandise finance at Euro Disney outside of Paris, where she met and eventually married her husband, Philippe. After having four daughters in three years, Melissa changed paths to focus on being a stay-at-home mom and quickly realized she was hardwired to streamline the family’s expenses (just like her mom had to do) so they could live on a single income. She could never have guessed that a home video of her making yogurt — a simple yet successful strategy that saved Melissa more than $1,000 a year — to share with local moms would also be her ticket to the newest chapter in her career and life path. National and local media, including the Today show, CNN, People, Food Network Magazine and iVillage.com, regularly feature Melissa’s recipes and tips. She is also invited to participate in top-notch industry events, including the Food Network South Beach Wine & Food Festival and New York City Wine & Food Festival, as well as to speak at engagements nationwide for a variety of organizations such as the American Foundation for Suicide Prevention, a cause very close to Melissa’s heart after losing her mother to suicide at age 20. Living just outside San Diego, Melissa and Philippe have four daughters — Valentine, Charlotte and twins Margaux and Océane — who double as Mom’s official taste testers. Melissa believes in the power of the family meal, and always serves food with the goal of nourishing both body and soul — cooking for the person, not the plate. She connects closely to her Christian faith and strives to live her life with meaning and purpose.

You wouldn’t expect a six-foot-tall native Vermonter to serve as America’s premier Thai food buff. Not until Ricker rolls up his sleeves to get to work, that is: his arms are inked with a traditional clay mortar and wooden pestle, bird’s eye chiles, and stylized Thai herbs. But his dedication to the cuisine is more than just skin-deep.Sugary pad thai and chicken skewers with candy-sweet peanut sauce may have shaped America's understanding of Thai cuisine, but Andy Ricker is setting out to change all that. As the chef-owner of Pok Pok restaurants in New York City and Portland, Oregon (where he's now based), he cooks food that tastes like it's from half a world away—because it is. He's been traveling to Thailand for over twenty years to bring its true flavors Stateside. His phat thai, speckled with salted radish and redolent of sour tamarind water and palm sugar syrup, boasts a precise balance of sweet, tart, and umami-rich flavors. His kai yaang, brined whole and stuffed with aromatics, was inspired by an old friend in Chiang Mai who spent 30 years spit-roasting young chickens alongside a wall of glowing charcoal. His first visit to Thailand was simply one of many stops he made while backpacking around the world, picking up odd jobs from New Zealand to England to support his travels. But his second trip there marked a watershed moment in his culinary career. He still remembers the one dish that blew his mind: a Northern-style mushroom curry. “It was like seeing an entirely new color," he recalls in his best-selling cookbook, Pok Pok. "From then on, my eyes were open.” Ricker dedicated himself to language lessons and befriended home cooks and street vendors, talking his way into their kitchens. His flavor quests became more systematic: he’d taste something outrageous, then try versions of it everywhere he could to understand how to recreate it. At times, his love affair with Thailand made him a hard hire back in the States, because he’d return every year. Eventually, he decided it was time to open his own restaurant.Ricker’s ambassadorship of Thai cuisine has boomed into an empire over the last two decades: in addition to his Pok Pok restaurants, he’s the founder of Pok Pok Som (a drinking vinegar company) and managing partner of Pok Pok Thaan (a charcoal importing enterprise). He’s also a two-time James Beard Award-winner and best-selling cookbook author. Even after decades of traveling to Thailand, Ricker doesn’t consider himself an expert: “I'm a student like everyone else who's interested in Thai cooking," he says. "My experience with Thai cooking is concentrated heavily on northern Thai food. Central Thai is something I'm learning more about. Southern Thai is almost an entire mystery to me.” His approach to Thai flavors is nearly sociological, and his devotion to ingredients keeps his dishes very close to their source. Ricker may not consider himself an expert, but he's undeniably a chef who’s passionate about creating food that tastes like it’s straight from Thailand. In his cooking class, you'll learn not only about the flavors and ingredients that define Thai cuisine, but the techniques, as well—the unique way street vendors shred green papaya for a classic salad, for instance, or how to use a traditional clay mortar. With every palate-piquing bite, you’ll understand anew why this is a cuisine that could spark a lifelong obsession. Andy's Restaurants:Pok Pok (Portland, OR)Pok Pok Ny (Brooklyn, NY)Whiskey Soda Lounge (Portland, OR)Andy's Book:Pok Pok (2013)