Tune in to UNC-TV Thu. Oct. 22 at 9:30pm and Sun. Oct. 25 at 1pm for the newest episode of “A Chef’s Life,” featuring Durham restaurants like Toast, Pizzeria Toro, Watts Grocery, Mateo and Saltbox Seafood Joint. The episode also features Ben’s opening reception at Alizarin Gallery.
I was an early adopter of “A Chef’s Life,” and since the first episode, I have urged virtually everyone I know to watch. It’s educational and charming. It’s part “Andy Griffith” in its depiction of small-town North Carolina and local characters. (Sometimes included are people and places I know, like Ben and Karen Barker of Magnolia Grill, Colleen Minton of TerraVita, and Bill Smith of Crook’s Corner.) It’s part Food Network programming during segments when star and chef Vivian Howard shows the audience how to make tomato pie or her mother’s chicken and rice. And it’s part reality TV, although that description has negative connotations that don’t apply. Trust me: There are no flipped tables or strings of bleeped curse words.
On a recent Saturday, my fandom reached such a level that my husband and I trekked to Kinston. Our very long day trip included, of course, dinner at Chef & the Farmer, the fine-dining restaurant Vivian runs with her husband, Ben Knight. She wasn’t there that night, but I was pretty much geeking out at the sight of the staff, all familiar faces from the show.
I can relate to Vivian. I’m not a chef; on the contrary, I don’t even do much home cooking. But when she fights back tears over an imperfect dinner service or worries about what could go wrong during an out- of-town food event she’s headlining or has to calm her nerves when a bigwig guest enters her dining room, I see myself in her. I think we all can. She’s constantly trying to do too much, please too many, push herself too hard.
For all her frets and fears, she’s doing quite well. And that may be
the understatement of the year. The thirty-something was a James Beard semifinalist for Best Chef: Southeast for the fourth time, a category that in 2015 included Matt Kelly of Mateo, Scott Howell of Nana’s, Aaron Vandemark of Hillsborough’s Panciuto, Edward Lee of Louisville’s 610 Magnolia and Kevin Gillespie of Atlanta’s Gunshow. She’s signed a two-cookbook deal. Season two of “A Chef ’s Life” just wrapped, and filming for season three is underway. The program, which is directed by Trinity Park resident Cynthia Hill (Cynthia’s husband, Rex Miller, serves as director of photography), has won a Daytime Emmy and the Peabody Award, broadcasting’s equivalent of a Pulitzer Prize.
An entire tab on Southern Season’s homepage is devoted to Vivian and her exclusive line of gift baskets. Her signature blueberry barbecue sauce is being bottled and sold. She’s opened the Boiler Room Oyster Bar in Kinston, a more casual eatery just steps away from Chef & the Farmer, which she launched in 2006. She graced the cover of The Local Palate in November, and her époisses grilled cheese and pepper jelly sandwiches were on the cover of January’s Food & Wine. The issue focused on “Women to Watch.” And watching, more and more of us are.
‘EVERYBODY IS BOOMING’
As her star has risen, so has her hometown’s. Just ask Matthew Hart, a 32-year-old Chapel Hill High alumnus who’s the head brewer at Kinston’s Mother Earth Brewing.
“I have come to love it here,” he says of the tiny town that, like so many of its North Carolina counterparts, went into a deep depression with the departures of the tobacco and textile industries. “Months at a time, I don’t even leave Kinston.”
That’s quite a contrast from when Matthew first arrived in late 2011. He and his friends would travel to Greenville, 30 miles away, to enjoy any kind of nightlife.
And now? “There’s so much more traffic because of the show. People come down on a whim. If they didn’t make a reservation at Chef & the Farmer, they go to the oyster bar. Everybody is booming because of it.”
Matthew’s boss, Mother Earth co-founder Stephen Hill (the other co-founder is Stephen’s son-in-law, Trent Mooring) deserves much of the credit for Kinston’s revival.
“We’re fortunate. Because he grew up here, he’s putting money in Kinston,” says Ben Harper, who lived in Durham for years and ran Harper Arts, right across from The ArtsCenter in Carrboro, before relocating his young family to Kinston last year. Ben now owns and operates BuyLocal – a gallery, handmade furniture and screenprinting company – in Kinston’s downtown. He and his wife, Katherine, were drawn to the town because of its affordable real estate, proximity to the beach and welcoming spirit.
But back to Stephen, a native of the area. Ben compares him to Jim Goodmon in Durham. With revenue coming in from his insurance company and a retirement community called Britthaven, Stephen decided to invest in the rundown downtown. In addition to the 5-year-old Mother Earth – which has been steadily growing by 30% in terms of production each year – he opened The Red Room, a music venue, after he was inspired by Matthew’s jam sessions in one of Stephen’s warehouses. He’s restored many homes in Mitchelltown, a once-deserted neighborhood adjacent to downtown that’s become an arts district where artists live, work and sell their wares. He’s opened Ginger 108, an Asian fusion restaurant. He’s turned an old downtown bank, The O’Neil, into a luxury boutique hotel. (The vault was transformed into an intimate bar.)
The hotel – which opened weeks ago – is especially timely because of the out- of-town traffic Kinston is seeing since “A Chef’s Life” debuted. “We get whole busloads of people from the Triangle who come here, stay [overnight] and then go home,” Matthew says.
In addition to The O’Neil and a Hampton Inn, out-of-towners can also stay at Warren Brothers’ small bed-and- breakfast. Fans of the show will recognize Warren; he’s a local farmer who constantly brings vegetables to the back door of Vivian’s kitchen.
COMING HOME
All of the buzz is creating more buzz – and more business. In the coming months, look for a locally sourced butcher, an LA-style taco joint, and a cheese shop specializing in aged cheddars and Gruyeres to open. That last business will belong to Matthew and his girlfriend of one year, Justise Robbins, who also happens to be Vivian’s executive sous chef. (They intend to keep their jobs at Mother Earth and Chef & the Farmer; the cheese shop will be their side gig.)
On the season two finale of “A Chef ’s Life,” Vivian takes Justise and several other staffers to New York to cook at the prestigious James Beard House. For many members of the team, it marked their first visit to the Big Apple.
“There’s this perception that if you can make it in New York, you can make it anywhere,” Vivian says in the episode. “And I went to New York to make it, and then I chose to leave. So that’s always been something that I have … grappled with in my own little brain. So coming back up here and cooking at the James Beard House, I feel like I have something to prove. I don’t know why – because I truly think if you can make it in Kinston, you can make it anywhere.”
