Vern's in Charleston, SC represents the culmination of Daniel and Bethany Henize's years of experience. They have worked in lauded restaurants around the country, including the now-closed Charleston institution McCrady's, as well as Animal, Jon & Vinny's, and Gjusta in Los Angeles. Located in a quaint corner building from the 1880s and named after Daniel's grandfather, the menu emphasizes of-the-moment seasonal ingredients and shareable plates. The wine program focuses on small producers with organic and biodynamic practices, and glasses clink all evening in a dining room that feels like a relaxed dinner party at a chef's residence more than one of the hottest restaurants to open in the city in the last five years. The love that this couple has for an industry that has been through the wringer recently is evident, and their commitment to excellence already at Vern's provides hope that the art of dining out and dining well has staying power.

According to the most recent data from the USDA, out of the 3.4 million farmers in the United States today, only 45,000 are Black. Deep in the maritime forests near the Edisto River in Dorchester, SC, Marvin Ross of Peculiar Pig Farm is one of that number. He started the farm in 2009, farming 15 acres of the 100 acres that his grandfather, Thomas Henry Ross, once farmed. It's where Marvin follows the tradition he was taught of raising and rotating hogs on wooded lots, allowing them to graze and forage, then supplementing what they find with heritage grains. This sustainable method of farming not only allows the pigs to live their "pig-ness" instead of being confined and crammed in huge lots, it also results in exceptionally flavorful meat. Some of the South's best restaurants -- including many whose chefs have been guests on this show -- serve Peculiar Pig Farm pork, from The Grey in Savannah, GA and Butcher & Bee in Charleston, SC, to Curate in Asheville. Marvin is standing on the foundation of family and community tradition and at the same time is forward-looking, focusing on everything from growing the diversity of livestock on his farm to cooking and catering with his own products.

A California girl now living in New Orleans, Joy Wilson, known more on the internet as Joy the Baker, never tires of the alchemy of baking at home. In 2008, Joy started a blog to share her indulgent, comforting, yet approachable recipes in her little corner of the internet, and the path since has been super sweet. She's a baking instructor, a three-time cookbook author, editor-in-chief of the Joy the Baker magazine, and she's been featured in numerous publications, including Food52, NYMag, TheKitchn, Better Homes and Gardens, and Country Living. Through it all, Joy proves baking is not about all the latest gadgets and high-tech gizmos, but about stepping into the kitchen with a monster sweet tooth, a curious attitude, and a willingness to practice coaxing something beautiful out of the oven.

Vishwesh Bhatt has been a part of Chef John Currence's City Grocery Restaurant Group in Oxford, MS since 1997. He started off as a prep cook at City Grocery and worked his way up to Executive Chef at Snackbar, where he has developed a menu that intertwines both Southern and subcontinental foodways. His new cookbook, I Am From Here: Stories and Recipes from a Southern Chef, celebrates and explores this intertwining of cultures through his own unique personal lens, and it was masterfully photographed by past guest Angie Mosier. Vish was Southern Living's 2019 Southerner of the Year and that same year won James Beard Foundation Best Chef: South. I wanted to catch up with him on his debut week before it took months for our paths to cross, but as is sometimes the case in the life of an independent podcast, my fancy remote recording equipment went wonky because of our respective locations, so we resorted to an old fashioned phone call. It was nevertheless a wonderful conversation, as you'll soon hear.

Sometimes, waiting for the conditions to be exactly right keeps us from seeing the opportunity in starting right now, even, literally, in our own backyards. But that certainly wasn't the case for one Charlotte, NC farm. Located inside the city limits off Brookshire Freeway is Small City Farm, owned and operated by Kim Shaw and Rohan Gibbs. Although it currently stands at three acres in a rolling ranch-house filled neighborhood, it was originally a ½ acre plot in the couple's South Charlotte backyard. Kim spent her childhood summers picking and packing produce for restaurants in Hilton Head, but she didn't actually set out to farm as an adult. Instead, she entered the food and beverage industry, and in the early 2000s found herself tending a garden for Chef Paul Verica while serving as the catering director for the Club at Longview. When her job was eliminated, she started growing produce and flowers full-time, and she's now grown into one of the region's most prized specialty producers, from delicate redbud flowers in the spring to Arkansas Traveler tomatoes in the summer and wide, deep green, winter collards that some of Charlotte's best chefs swear by. Small City Farm is a re-imagining of what we consider farming, and each season it proves how much creativity and ingenuity can yield.

If you've spent time in Charlotte, NC in the last 40 years, Barbara McKay's voice could be as familiar as family. One of the region's most popular media personalities, she taught a generation of viewers to cook through her consistent presence on WBTV during an era when viewers sat by the television with pad and paper ready to write down the recipes she demonstrated and dictated step-by-step. She's perhaps best known for her work as co-host -- from the early 1980s through the mid-90s -- of the daily noontime show "Top O' the Day", and then from there, she went on to create, executive produce, and host other lifestyle shows locally, regionally, and nationally. She launched two successful magazines in the Charlotte market (one of which saw some of my earliest bylines) and she's recently published Coming Home, a combination cookbook and memoir that shares a behind-the-scenes glimpse of a life spent in front of the camera.

Tucked under street level in the shadow of the South Carolina State Capitol in Columbia, SC, is The Whig, one of the best bars (in my opinion) in the South. There are good cocktails, string lights, taxidermy decor, gouda mac and cheese and burgers if you get hungry, and if you happen in on the right night, co-owner Will Green will be behind the bar, mixing cocktails and keeping the vibe chill with a calm, assuring demeanor. Will was a MFA student at the University of South Carolina when he pulled his first shift at The Whig, and years later he's moved into a leadership position as one of its owners, as well as also co-owning WeCo Bottle and Biergarten in neighboring West Columbia. He aims to elevate the dive bar personality of The Whig without making it lose its charm, and it's a tightrope he deftly traverses, while managing to keep a sense of humor about it all.

There's something of a relaxed grace about Florence, AL. It's approachable, artistic, yet with a definite deep South accent, and Odette, a restaurant nestled in an historic storefront in its downtown, is the culinary embodiment of that aesthetic. That style comes from owner Celeste Pillow and Chef Josh Quick, who's been at the helm since it opened in 2013. Although Josh didn't grow up in the town, his personality and style of cooking seem completely at home here. He came to Northwest Alabama by working at the Marriott Shoals, a popular hotel in the area, and before that, earned his culinary training through an American Culinary Federation apprenticeship at Walt Disney World. At Odette, his focus is on American food with Southern and International influences, and through the years, he's earned the trust of loyal regulars, so he gets to be creative with the ever evolving menu. He's earned my trust too, with one bite of crispy catfish in a flavorful broth, and I'm already ready to visit again.

It takes close to 1200 bees to make a 16-ounce jar of honey. Each one of those bees, through its choice of flower nectar, contributes to the unique flavor profile of a honey, a profile that can vary season to season, even if the location of the hive remains the same. That unique character -- the literal taste of a place -- is only preserved if the honey arrives to your kitchen pantry 100% raw, and for many cooks and chefs in Alabama, some of the best tasting and highest quality raw honey is produced by Eastaboga Bee Company. Beekeeper Justin Hill comes from a long lineage of farmers, and when he took up keeping bees a few years ago to diversify his farm, he really got bit by the beekeeping bug. He's now one of the largest honey producers in the region, and you can find Eastaboga Bee Company honey on some of the best menus in the state. It tastes like sweet, liquid sunshine on the rolling Alabama fields in summer, pure liquid gold.

Coast Brewing has been making high-quality beer in the South Carolina Lowcountry for so long, it's easy to take the availability and the quality of its beer for granted. It's sincerely become part of Charleston, just as its former taproom -- really a few taps on the side of a walk-in cooler -- became sort of a community hub for a pint and a chat. That availability, quality, and community has been the driving force for co-owner Jaime Tenny, who along with her husband David Merritt, have just been head down, making beer, selling beer, and helping welcome and anchor a growing beer scene in the state for more than a decade. But as any entrepreneur knows, all that day in, day out hussle to support and build a business carries its own price and then some. After many challenges, Coast is poised on the edge of a new phase, about to open a new taproom and production building later this year. And that's worth raising a pint to.