Chef's Life: Season 1

"Chef and the Farmer" restaurantIn November 2022 I heard chef Vivian Howard interviewed on a podcast about her Thanksgiving ideas, so I looked her up and discovered this 2013 PBS series. It was available on Amazon, so despite my affinity for European cooking, I started watching. It is truly delightful, entertaining, and educational. She proves a good, inventive chef can go anywhere and use almost anything local to prepare delicious food.Chef Howard is a strong supporter of local ingredients and suppliers. Each episode has portions focused on different areas of cooking, such as with individual farmers who supply the restaurant: grains, vegetables and livestock, the local brewery and moonshiner. My favorite episodes were about rice and sweet potatoes. These really helped me to learn about areas of which I am ignorant, such as sorghum.There are also intimate personal segments with her family and some with a local person such as the woman in her 90s who was the expert on canning and preserving. There are portions where Vivian alone shows how she prepares a single dish, and some of the restaurant itself during a regular shift or theme dinner. Chef Vivian laughs a lot, but also shows her frustration and continuing stress with the usual employee problems, as well as her better staff. Her artist husband Ben is very supportive, but also seems a bit of a downer. She reveals that he cannot do his own work because the restaurant's needs consume their lives.This series truly made me appreciate American ingredients and recipes, and perhaps inspired me to be a better cook. It made me appreciate the southern U.S. and certainly the chef herself. It is a very good show to watch.

I love this show! It is a feast for the eyes, the mind and the senses. Vivian (sp?), the chef, has such a lovely, easy going manner about her, while managing a very complicated life. She and her husband are new parents, live in a very rural area and run a high end restaurant completely focused on showcasing the best of what local farmers have to offer for the season: vegetables, meat, fruit, seafood... everything. What I love is that we get to go with Vivian to meet the farmers, see where they produce what they are growing, appreciate the gifts that they offer and understand the special magic she sees in what they have produced Even better, we then get to go inside the restaurant kitchen and witness the additional magic that she applies to what just came out of the field. Bonus is that every now and then we get a recipe from her and get to watch her make it. On a Thursday night I watched Vivian make smoked corn relish, realized I had most of the ingredients I needed, got the rest from the market the next morning and made it for a dinner party that night. HUGE hit! Rave reviews all around. Thanks V! I also enjoy Vivian going into personal kitchens and asking home cooks about how and why they do what they do so that we can learn from them as well. It's fun to learn about the traditions of Southern food this way. My family has lived in the south since the 1600s and I spent a lot of time in the kitchen with my grandmother and my Mom. It was always my favorite place to be. But, I've never had this much fun as being in Vivian's kitchen, witnessing and learning from her. The videography is great, the subject matter for each episode intrigues me, and I am entertained every moment. Truly a visual and sensory journey So much fun.

Here’s the problem. It’s free to watch season one, and it’s good. It’s so good that I would pay to watch the other seasons (though there is no season 2 here) except it is $5 an episode. Which makes it $65 a season. I’m sorry but that isn’t happening. So unless you have a great deal of free money floating around to watch every other season at $65 (which I believe there are 5?) just don’t watch season one. You will get hooked, you will be wanting more, and you will be disappointed because it’s just too expensive.

This series features Chef Vivian Howard who returned to her Tarheel roots with her husband and young twins. Her plan was to introduce innovative food sourced from local farmers in a casual atmosphere.Vivian's skills in the kitchen, her good humor, and winning smile enhanced the story of the many challenges and long hours required to operate a successful restauant. The series introduces us to many of the local farmers and their crops, along with Vivian's family. A real winner. Five stars from this viewer.

Functioned as expected. Enjoyed the show.

I just happened on to this show last week "A Chef's Life" because I love to cook and enjoy cooking shows. Now my husband and I are hooked on the show. We watched all of Season 1 and will be so sad when we finish Season 2. Vivian is amazing. So creative, is who she is, and does everything to perfection. Her husband Ben is also very professional at his job in the restaurant and the wine shop. Both of them work as a team and get it done - no matter what transpires. There are usually some "bumps" in the road, but that's life for all of us if people would only be honest. Their twins, an adorable little girl and boy are so cute picking fruit etc. in the field at one of the farms the restaurant buys from. Vivian and Ben treat all the farmers with such respect and appreciate all that they grow and the freshness of everything they purchase for the restaurant. Fresh everything. In season, grown in the area, home town people and just a joy to watch. Love this show!!