The Jury
Jury Chair
Jim Dodge
Jim Dodge
Jim has published several cookbooks, including the award-winning American Baker and Baking with Jim Dodge. He is a contributing editor to the revised Joy of Cooking, as well as a former contributing editor to Food & Wine, and consulting culinary editor to Cooks Illustrated. Jim has received numerous honors, including a James Beard Award for Excellence in 2005, a Gold Plate Award presented by the American Academy of Achievement in 1989, a James Beard Cookbook Award in 1987, and the Honor Roll of American Chefs for Food & Wine in 1983.
Carla Hall
Carla Hall
Carla Hall is a renowned chef, television personality and cookbook author. A former co-host of ABC’s Emmy award-winning series “The Chew,” and competitor on “Top Chef” and “Top Chef: All Stars,” Carla’s approach to cooking blends her classic French training and Southern upbringing for a twist on traditional favorites. Her cookbooks are “Carla’s Comfort Food: Favorite Dishes from Around the World” and “Cooking with Love: Comfort Food That Hugs You”. Her third book, “CARLA HALL’S SOUL FOOD: Everyday and Celebration” will be released October 23, 2018
A native of Nashville, TN, Hall attended L’Academie de Cuisine in Maryland where she completed her culinary training, going on to work as a Sous Chef at the Henley Park Hotel in Washington, DC. She also served as Executive Chef at both The State Plaza Hotel and The Washington Club, and has taught classes at CulinAerie, Sur la Table and her alma mater, L’Academie de Cuisine. Carla is also active with a number of charities and not-for-profit organizations that reflect her passion for causes close to her heart. She serves as a Board Member for the Pajama Program and GenYouth. Carla also actively works with Chef Jose Andres’ World Central Kitchen Chef Network, DC Central Kitchen, The USO, St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital, Feeding America, Women Chefs and Restaurateurs (WCR), and she serves on the advisory boards for the Edible Academy for the New York Botanical Gardens and for the Food and Finance High School in New York City. Carla is also a member of the James Beard Foundation’sWomen’s Leadership Advisory Committee and is the Culinary Ambassador for Sweet Home Cafe at the Smithsonian National Museum for African American History and Culture in Washington, DC. She lives in D.C. with her husband, Matthew Lyons.
Stephan Pyles
Stephan Pyles
Stephan Pyles is considered a founding father of Southwestern Cuisine and Modern Texas Cuisine. A fifth-generation Texan, he has opened 22 restaurants in 6 cities over the past 34 years, including Routh Street Café, Star Canyon, the eponymous Stephan Pyles and Stampede-66. His most current restaurant is Flora Street Café, which since its opening was named Texas’s Best New Restaurant by Texas Monthly Magazine and nominated for the James Beard Award for Best New Restaurant in America.
Stephan has authored four successful cookbooks and hosted two seasons of the Emmy Award-Winning PBS series New Tastes from Texas. He was the first person in the Southwest to win a James Beard Award for Best Chef. He has cooked for dignitaries and celebrities from around the world, including five American presidents and HRH Queen Elizabeth II.
A tireless philanthropist, Pyles is a founding board member of Share Our Strength, the country’s largest source of private funding for hunger relief, a board member of the North Texas Food Bank and founded The Hunger Link, Dallas’ perishable food program in 1990. Pyles has given $250,000 in culinary scholarships in his name over the past 12 years and has served on the board of Goodwill Industries. He is currently on the Board of Trustees for the Dallas Opera.
Darra Goldstein
Dara Goldstein
Darra Goldstein is the Willcox B. and Harriet M. Adsit Professor of Russian at Williams College. She is also the Founding Editor of Gastronomica: The Journal of Food and Culture, named the 2012 Publication of the Year by the James Beard Foundation.
She has published numerous books and articles on literature, culture, art, and cuisine, and has organized several exhibitions, among them Graphic Design in the Mechanical Age and Feeding Desire: Design and the Tools of the Table, 1500-2005, both at the Cooper-Hewitt, National Design Museum. She is also the author of four cookbooks: A Taste of Russia (nominated for a Tastemaker Award), The Georgian Feast (winner of IACP’s Julia Child Award for Cookbook of the Year), The Winter Vegetarian, and Baking Boot Camp at the CIA (IACP award finalist).
She is currently Food Editor of Russian Life magazine and the series editor of California Studies in Food and Culture (University of California Press), a book series that seeks to broaden the audience for serious scholarship in food studies. In 2013 she was named Distinguished Fellow in Food Studies at the Jackman Humanities Institute, University of Toronto. Goldstein’s latest projects include editorship of the 1000-page Oxford Companion to Sugar and Sweets, forthcoming in April 2015, and a new cookbook, Fire and Ice: Classic Nordic Cooking, to be published by Ten Speed Press in October 2015.
Russ Parsons
Russ Parsons
Russ Parsons is the former food editor and columnist of the Los Angeles Times. He has been writing about food for 30 years, including 25 years at The L.A. Times. He is the author of the cookbooks How to Read a French Fry, a finalist for two IACP Julia Child cookbook awards, and How to Pick a Peach, named one of the 100 best books of the year by both Publisher’s Weekly and Amazon.
He is a member of the James Beard Foundation’s Who’s Who of Food and Beverage in America. In addition, he has won every major American food journalism award, including those from the International Association of Culinary Professionals, the Association of Food Journalists, and the James Beard Foundation.