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Known for his innovative use of fresh herbs and spices, Jerry Traunfeld is chef and owner of Poppy and Lionhead restaurants, both in the Capitol Hill neighborhood of Seattle. After a fascination watching Julia Child on The French Chef in the early 70’s, Jerry began to teach himself to cook in his early teens. In 1983 he graduated from the California Culinary Academy and went on to cook at two important San Francisco restaurants, Ernie’s and Stars. He then moved to Seattle and became executive chef of The Alexis Hotel while he was still in his 20’s, overseeing four restaurants including the Café Alexis. In 1990, Jerry had the opportunity to combine his love of cooking with his love of gardening when he became executive chef of The Herbfarm, a tiny restaurant that was part of a working herb nursery. Over the next 17 years, Jerry helped turn The Herbfarm into a highly regarded and top-rated destination restaurant, garnering national attention for his seasonal Northwest menus, his innovative use of culinaryherbs, and his pioneering dedication to seeking out local sustainable ingredients. In 2000, he won the James Beard award for “Best Chef Northwest”.Jerry is the author of two acclaimed cookbooks on the subject of culinary herbs, The Herbfarm Cookbook, which won an IACP award, and The Herbal Kitchen. He has been featured in The New York Times Magazine, Food and Wine, Bon Appetit, Gourmet, Fortune, and many other publications. Jerry’s television appearances include Martha Stewart Living and Top Chef Masters. On a 1997 trip to India to research spices for a new cookbook, Jerry discovered the thali, a platter served to each guest holding a variety of small dishes that complement and contrast each other to form a complete meal. He returned with the inspiration to open his own restaurant, featuring the idea of the thali to present his style of seasonal cooking highlighted by fresh herbs and spices. He named the restaurant Poppy after his mother and it opened in 2008. It was named one of 50 best new restaurants in the U.S. in Travel and Leisure and made the Condé Nast hot list of 50 top new restaurants in the world. In 2015 Jerry opened Lionhead, a Sichuan Chinese restaurant located next door to Poppy. Jerry has been cooking Chinese food as a hobby since he was in culinary school, and for several years before opening the restaurant he immersed himself in creating a menu that brings the authentic flavors of Sichuan Province to Seattle. Seattle Met Magazine named him 2015 Chef of the Year for this work, and Lionhead was a 2015 restaurant of the year in Seattle Magazine.Jerry lives on Capitol Hill with his husband, Stephen, who works with him at the restaurants. Jerry's Restaurants:Lionhead (Seattle, WA) Poppy (Seattle, WA)Jerry's Books:The Herbal Kitchen: Cooking with Fragrance and Flavor (2005)The Herbfarm Cookbook (2000)

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)