High Water Festival in Charleston, SC is an annual music and arts experience curated by the band Shovels and Rope. Every year since it's inception, an oyster education component has been led by Seaborn Oyster Company. The founder, Cyrus Buffum has New England ties and a family history of close...

Steve Palmer, a James Beard Foundation Outstanding Restaurateur Award nominee and semifinalist for three consecutive years (’18,’19, & ’20), is the managing partner of The Indigo Road Hospitality Group, a hospitality and consulting company based in Charleston, SC. In 2016, Steve and fellow restaurateur Mickey Bakst founded Ben’s Friends, a...

Per tradition, the CHWFF's executive director Gillian Zettler stopped by during the festival's final hour to reflect on the whirlwind of events the long weekend had in store. This year marked the festival's joyful return after being cancelled in 2021 as a result of the pandemic as well a change...

Industry veterans and champions of Ben's Friends, Mickey Bakst and Ben Ellsworth discuss sobriety and support in the restaurant industry. Ben's Friends is a resource for hospitality professionals struggling with addiction and substance abuse. These two share personal stories about their experiences with sobriety, converse about the impact of the...

Matt Lee grew up in Charleston, South Carolina. When he and his brother Ted left to attend colleges in the Northeast, they so missed the foods of their hometown that they founded The Lee Bros. Boiled Peanuts Catalogue, a mail-order catalogue for southern pantry staples like stone-ground grits, fig preserves...

Amethyst Ganaway is a chef and food writer, focusing primarily on Southern and African-American foodways and the foodways of the African Diaspora. She's also the lead recipe developer and content creator for Chef Pierre Thiam’s West African food brand, Yolélé. She talks about her food memories from growing up in...

The most significant crop in the world, rice is a staple in the diets of more than half of the Earth’s people. Chinese lore claimed it was a gift from the animals after a flood; eons ago, the Japanese paid their taxes with rice; in the American South, rice became...

Vivian Howard is an award-winning cookbook author, TV personality, chef and restaurateur. Her first cookbook Deep Run Roots: Stories & Recipes from My Corner of the South (2016), is a New York Times bestseller and was named “Cookbook of the Year” by the International Association of Culinary Professionals. She created...

Cybille St. Aude-Tate, Omar Tate, Valerie Erwin, Monica O’Connell come together to talk about an event they collaborated on titled Exploring Black Spirituality Through Food. It was a relaxed, love-filled dinner examining the intersections and histories of Black spirituality and religion as they relate to food. They talk about the...

Amy Mills was raised up on smoke and sauce. She is heiress to the 17th Street Barbecue empire, which she leads alongside her dad, Mike Mills. Together they co-authored Peace, Love, and Barbecue and Praise the Lard. She also runs OnCue Consulting, the only barbecue business consultancy in the world...