Chef Bio

Michael W. Smith knows how to create a great tune – and Michael’s mom knows how to create a great meal. Barbara Smith was a professional caterer in West Virginia for fifteen years and has self-published two cookbooks. In 1999 she published her cookbook, “Cooking with Smitty’s Mom,” which offers plenty of her family’s favorite recipes and stories about her family and their holiday gatherings. Barbara also uses cooking as a ministry through the idea that cooking is serving. She has created a lifestyle that says, “Welcome!” She loves serving her family. She also uses her cooking abilities to serve those who are sick, grieving and need encouragement. Her sincere, kind and compassionate personality makes her a “hit” with any audience. Although the mother of a music legend, Barbara Smith’s priorities are her faith in God, her family and her friends. She believes it is very important to make family meals a special time of eating and sharing together.

She and her husband, Paul, have two children – Kimberly Bennett and Michael W. Smith – and eight grandchildren. They reside in Franklin, Tennessee

Gregory Palevo

Saint Thomas Heart Institute

Parkerson G, Palevo G. Changes in Patient Quality of Life during Cardiac Rehabilitation. Saint Thomas Hospital, Nashville, Tennessee.

Palevo G. One repetition Maximum Testing in Heart Failure Patients. Saint Thomas Hospital, Nashville, Tennessee. PhD Pre-study for Dissertation.

Palevo G. What effect does Isotonic Strength Training have Ejection Fraction in Heart Failure Patients. Saint Thomas Hospital, Nashville, Tennessee and Middle Tennessee State University, Murfreesboro, Tennessee. 2002. PhD Dissertation.

HF-ACTION: Heart Failure and A Controlled Trial Investigating Outcomes of Exercise Training. STH is a designated research site for this 34 million NIH study. Co-PI and study site coordinator.

Responsible for nutrition intervention and education for in-house cardiac patients, out-patients in cardiac rehabilitation, congestive heart failure clinic and coordinates and presents the Saint Thomas heart healthy cooking school program.

Priscilla Jackson has been the Executive Chef of the Stones River Country Club in Murfreesboro for the last 3 years. Chef Jackson comes with years of experience in many areas of the food service industry. Some of these include private catering, event planning, sales, and culinary class instruction.

Jackson is a native of Murfreesboro and was involved in the creation of the Junior League of Murfreesboro's cookbook, Our House, A Culinary Tour, serving as the recipe chair. She received her Associate's Degree in Culinary and Food Service Management at Jefferson State Community College in Birmingham, Alabama. Prior to Stones River Country Club, Chef Jackson was with B'McNeels Restaurant in Murfreesboro, Nashville's Loews Vanderbilt Hotel and Sunset Grill. She enjoys creating distinctive menu dishes that are both pleasing to the eyes as well as the palette.

FRP’s first Culinary Publications Specialist, Sarah Labensky focuses on publications by chefs, hotels, food manufacturers and other commercial foodservice clients. Sarah is a cookbook author, cooking teacher, former working chef and caterer, active community volunteer, and passionate culinary professional.

Chef Sarah, as she was affectionately known by her students, was Founding Director of the Culinary Arts Institute at Mississippi University for Women where she taught cooking and management courses, and administered the four-year baccalaureate degree program. Prior to joining MUW’s faculty, she was a Professor of Culinary Arts at Scottsdale (Arizona) Community College. Before teaching, Chef Sarah spent many years as a working pastry cook and caterer.

Sarah is co-author of the best-selling book, On Cooking: A Textbook of Culinary Fundamentals (Prentice Hall, 1995; 2^nd ed., 1999, 3^rd ed. 2003; 4^th ed. 2006), which was nominated for an IACP/ Julia Child Cookbook award. She also co-authored Webster’s New World Dictionary of Culinary Arts (Prentice Hall, 1997; 2^nd ed., 2000), which was nominated for a James Beard Foundation Book Award; The Complete Idiot’s Guide to Cooking: Techniques and Science (Alpha Books, 2002); and Applied Math for Food Service (Prentice Hall, 1998). Her latest publication is On Baking: A Textbook of Baking and Pastry Fundamentals (Prentice Hall, 2005). Sarah also served as Editor of two books prepared by FRP: For the Love of Food (IACP, 2005) and Southern Grace: Recipes and Remembrances from The W (MUW, 2004).

In her former life, Sarah was a practicing attorney, with a J.D. degree from Vanderbilt University. She also holds a B.S. degree cum laude in Public Administration from Murray (Kentucky) State University and a Culinary Certificate from Scottsdale (Arizona) Community College.

Chef Sarah is active in numerous professional organizations and is the Immediate Past-President of the International Association of Culinary Professionals (IACP). Chef Sarah is also a member of The American Culinary Federation, The Association for the Study of Food and Society, and The James Beard Foundation. She is a past President of Arizona Women in Food & Wine, and served for many years on the Board of Directors for the Arizona chapter of the American Institute of Wine & Food.

Taking in the wonderful aroma coming from the family grill, as his dad grilled the family summer-time feasts, was the beginning of a life-long love of barbecue and smoke cooking for Southern Delight Gourmet Foods founder, Bart Anderson.

In his early twenties, Anderson began experimenting with making his own barbecue sauces, by beginning with “store bought” sauces and “spicing them up.” Over time, store-bought sauces were taken out of his recipes, and he had the beginnings of what would become a line of national award-winning sauces. It took nearly twenty years before his first recipes were ready for the world. To date, they’ve earned eight national awards.

Since he has no formal culinary training, Mr. Anderson has a passion for creating easy-to-fix recipes for the average home cook, who’s looking for great taste with little preparation. With high blood pressure running in his wife Marilyn’s family, he has developed a passion for producing low-sodium products – all Southern Delight products are low sodium.

Mr. Anderson occasionally appears on local television, showing the local audience how to cook easy-to-fix and great tasking recipes.

Trained in Classic French and Cajun-Creole cooking, Jeff M. Lunsford, a Nashville native, began his culinary career at The Orangery in Knoxville, while attending The University of Tennessee. After being bit by the restaurant bug, he traveled south to work with renowned Southern Chef Frank Stitt at his restaurants, Bottega and Highlands Bar & Grill. Traveling further South, Jeff developed his culinary talents under James Beard Award winning chef Susan Spicer at Bayona in New Orleans. “The four years in New Orleans allowed me the opportunity to explore so many different styles of food and work in an environment that was all about food and enjoying life.” Says Jeff.

In 1996, Chef Jeff returned home and was hired by Nashville Restaurateur Randy Rayburn at Sunset Grille as Executive Sous Chef and was soon promoted to Executive Chef, giving him an opportunity to experience casual fine dining in a fast paced setting. Jeff later developed his front of the house experience as the Food & Beverage Director of Old Natchez Country Club and opened The Club at Fairvue Plantation in early 2004. Jeff returned to the kitchen as Executive Chef and General Manager of Saffire in the Fall of 2004. Jeff remarks, “ Put care, passion, and attention to detail into everything you do. You can train people how to cook, you can teach people how to be good servers, but you cannot teach people how to care.” Building a team of people at Saffire who care about what they do produces chef’s from cooks and professional server’s from order takers. That caring attitude will continue to make Saffire the best restaurant in Williamson County.

My focus is on taste first then design. I believe that flavors should be intense, but not overpowering while still being pleasing to the pallet. Design and decoration should flow well to enhance the overall dessert. I don’t believe in large obnoxious garnishes that are nice to look at yet never consumed.

Hal has served as the Executive Chef of Nick & Rudy’s, a Nashville fine-dining favorite, since January, 2001. Upon assuming leadership in the kitchen, he refined the previous steakhouse emphasis by adding a broad variety of American and Continental specialties.

Largely because of his childhood - cooking with his mother, Chef Hal developed an unparalleled hunger for the discipline in the Culinary Arts that he formally pursued at West Virginia’s Shepherd College. After graduating with his degree, he was accepted into the coveted Culinary Apprenticeship Program at the world-class Greenbrier Resort in White Sulphur Springs, West Virginia, a perennial AAA Five-Diamond award winner and the number one post-secondary culinary education in the United States. During his studies at the Greenbrier, Hal interned with world-class chefs like Hartmut Handke CMC, Peter Timmins CMC, and Tom Colicchio.

Cindy Otto

Cindy Otto began her professional culinary career long before she learned to drive a car. At the age of only 13 she was a steering orders on and off the grill in a kitchen at a local amusement park in her hometown of Oklahoma City, Oklahoma. “It was there I learned the fine art of balancing the sweet and spicy flavors of the condiments to that of the corn-fed beef and sesame-topped bun,” Cindy jokes. “Too much catsup and mustard are definitely not a good thing!”

Through the rest of her younger years, Otto continued to refine her palette as well as her love of cooking. She worked for a specialty cheese retailer and upon graduating with a B.A. in mass communications from Oklahoma City University, went to work as a promotional representative for a large California winery. She has since lived and traveled extensively throughout the Hawaiian Islands and Asia and loves combining exotic flavors with those of her mid-western roots.

Cindy’s career choices have always taken her to paths in the culinary arts and entertainment industries. While in Asia, she toured with Disneyfest, a division of the Walt Disney Entertainment Companies, as a character actor. She has also appeared in the CBS Television series “Raven”. In addition, because of her inspiring life story, she has appeared on many local and national talk shows and in local and national news publications.

Since her return from Asia, Cindy has been a spokesperson for various companies and has recently returned to an occupation in the culinary arts. She was an instructor and founding chef for Inspired Chef, a division of Kitchen Aid, until the division closed in September 2002. Through Inspired Chef she taught in-home cooking classes and was schooled in the Cordon Bleu style of culinary practice. She also performs cooking demonstrations at tradeshows, and has made many television appearances on Nashville’s “Talk of The Town”.

In January 2004 Cindy joined the “Cook’s Corner” for the Shop At Home Network. She was seen nationally as she represented various cooking appliances and gadgets. She also styled photographs for the Food Network’s “Food Finds” on the Shop at Home Network’s website.

Currently, Cindy is working as food stylist on “Lorianne Crook’s Celebrity Kitchen” television show which airs nationally on the Great American Country Network. She is also a culinary instructor for the Viking Culinary Arts School and conducts monthly cooking classes at “Wild Oats”, a local gourmet health food store. She teaches everyone from toddlers to seniors the joy of making delicious, healthy cuisine.

Cindy currently resides in Nashville, Tennessee with her husband, Barry and puppy, Cupcake.

“Good food is meant to be shared. “I love giving recipe ideas to my students so that they can recreate the dishes for their family and friends,” Cindy explained. “I believe food is a symbol of our love and sharing food is another way we can show each other how much we truly care,” she said.

“I am the smoke guy,” says George Harvell, who arrives at the Loveless barbecue pit each morning between 2 a.m. and 4 a.m. He pulls well-wrapped and falling-apart-tender hunks of brisket and pork shoulder from the dying embers, shovels out the pit, and refires the hickory wood to begin to slow-smoke the day’s meats.

Harvell started in the foodservice business at the estimable Belle Mead Cafeteria back in the late 1970s ultimately becoming a private chef. “I wasn’t too busy at first, so I played a lot of basketball at the YMCA. There I met Tom Morales, who had just started TomKats with his wife Kathie. They weren’t busy, either, so Tom and I played a lot of basketball together.”

Harvell hired on with TomKats, first doing piecework, then doing just about everything, including catering twenty-nine movies and being chef at the Starwood Amphitheater. During ten years with TomKats, he learned the art of barbecue, and art about which he has some very definite opinions. He was so enamored of the subject that he decided to open his own barbecue business when he left TomKats. He went to Tom Morales to see if his old boss happened to have an unneeded grill he could buy. When Morales described his plans for the Loveless, he included a description of the new smokehouse he was planning to build. “He hired me,” Harvell recalls, “and he told me they were building that smokehouse pretty much for me.”

Foremost among Harvell’s absolute rules of barbecue is the importance of hickory wood. Harvell starts his fire with seasoned hickory logs, then adds green ones for more smoke. He also throws in water soaked hickory chips if he needs to bring down the flames and/or bring up the flavor. “That’s the true art of barbecue,” he declares. “The right balance between heat and smoke. That and a good dry rub.”

Carol Fay Ellison is the steady anchor in the kitchen of the Loveless Café. Business tides may ebb and flow, but her biscuits are a constant fact of life, as are the fruit preserves she makes to go with them.

One of ten children who grew up in a home where mother made biscuits for the family. Carol Fay started work as a dishwasher at the Loveless twenty-six years ago. One day when someone didn’t come in for work, she filled in as a line cook making eggs, ham, and sausage. “Oh, Lordy, it was hot then,” she remembers. “If it was a hundred degrees outside, it was two hundred in the kitchen. You had to walk into the freezer to get cool.” Gifted with expertise learned from watching her mother, she soon became the biscuit lady. Biscuits had always been an essential part of the café’s meals; when they became her responsibility, she made a change or two in the recipe and created what has since become a Loveless signature. “They had been using powdered milk, buttermilk, and water,” she recalls. “But with powdered milk, you make a dough that chunks and gunks. So I took it out of the recipe.” Precious few people have since apprenticed with Carol Fay to become proficient as biscuit makers. “It can be tough teaching people,” she says. “A lot of them don’t want to put their fingers in the dough. And handling the dough just right is key.”

Nashville native Chrisi Harper has joined the Plumgood Team to design recipes, develop Meals Made Easy, and spearhead the coming-soon Plumgood Prepared Food offerings. Growing up in a Macrobiotic household, Chrisi has spent her entire life uniquely acquainted with food. She instinctively understands the relationship of food to physical health and mental wellbeing, and her energy and enthusiasm for delicious whole foods make her a fantastic addition to Plumgood.

Chrisi attended the Macrobiotic Career Training Program at the Kushi Institute in Becket, MA, and the Natural Gourmet whole foods culinary school in Manhattan. She assisted Christina Pirello and Renee Loux Underkoffler in cooking classes and completed an internship with Chef Michel Stroot at the Golden Door Spa in California. Prior to working with Plumgood, Chrisi cooked for private clients in the Nashville area.

We love that Chrisi is as deft with a filet of beef as she is with tempeh, transforming both into delectable meals satisfying many palates. Soup is her favorite creative canvas, and her expertise shines in the Thai Chicken Soup soon available in Plumgood Prepared. Get ready for the Curried Tuna Salad, Apple Cranberry Bread Pudding, and more!

Michael Osborne is a Certified Executive Chef of the American Culinary Federation. He is currently employed in Southern Middle Tennessee at the Manchester ~ Coffee County Conference Center. Mike has been working at several fine dining and eating establishments in Middle Tennessee over the past 15 years.

His career and training have taken him around the world, with an extended stay in the Far East. Mike spent over ten years working with the United States Air Force in various Officers’ and NCO clubs. His favorite assignment was at the Officers’ Club, Andrews AFB, Washington, D.C. There he had the pleasure of cooking for many heads of state, two U.S. Presidents and even British Royalty.

Mike lives in Tullahoma, Tennessee with his wife Hayley, and their two children, Robby and Shayla.

Tennessee Gourmet^® products are the brainchild of Sue Sykes and Gary Dummer who loved to work in their home gardens while working fulltime in the telecom industry. In August 1987, they decided their love affair with nature could provide a retirement opportunity and Mr. Green Genes, Inc., a company specializing in landscape design, was germinated. In 2001, the business continued to expand to include tree services and our best friend, Tom Ellison, joined the team. As with all good plants, a healthy shoot, Tennessee Gourmet^®, was created. Gary, Sue and Tom left the corporate world and now develop products and services for the enjoyment of life - whether it is caring for nature’s plants or enhancing the great

(Gary, Sue and Tom)

foods and flavors that nature produces. The recipes for what has become the Tennessee Gourmet^® product line were created in Sue’s home kitchen and enjoyed only by close friends and family. At their insistence, the recipes were refined for production so they could be shared with everyone.

You may be wondering why we chose an Iris for our product logo. This is both a reminder of our love of gardening and it is also the State flower of Tennessee.

“We promise that no Iris’s were harmed or used in the production of our products”.

Nashville Chef
Debra Paquette

    An ever present star in the Nashville dining scene, Debra Paquette,
chef/owner of ZOLA Restaurant, has repeated her sweep of the top three
dining awards in the Nashville Scene’s Readers’ Poll. ZOLA has once
again taken Best Restaurant honors in 2004, while Debra repeated Best
Chef and Best Menu accolades. Winning the same awards in both 2002 and
2003, the restaurant also received an Editors’ Choice award for Best
Specialty Salad and Best Pastry Chef. In the 2005 CitySearch Best of
Nashville Poll, ZOLA won "Best Salad", "Best Fine Dining", "Best
Special Occasion", "Best Dessert" and "Most Romantic Restaurant" awards.
    Specializing in Southern European and New South cuisine, ZOLA
Restaurant on West End Ave., has developed a following that extends far
beyond Nashville. ZOLA has been nominated four times for the
prestigious Ivy Award from Restaurants and Institutions Magazine. Only
seventy restaurants from across the country are nominated for this
prestigious award. In its October, 2004 issue, Gourmet Magazine named
ZOLA one of the "Top Sixty Restaurants In the U.S."
         A graduate of the Culinary Institute of America, Debra’s fusion
of flavors from Spain, France and Italy, combined with some unique
Southern twists, has been on the cutting edge of the Nashville
restaurant scene for the past eight years. She received the 1998 and
1999 “Restaurateur of the Year” awards from the Tennessee Chefs
Association. She has been voted “Nashville’s Best Chef” more than ten
times in past Nashville Scene Readers Polls.
       Food critic for the New York Times, Bryan Miller said this about
ZOLA’s menu, “Delightful, amazingly balanced. Debra Paquette turns out
complex, though harmonious entrees.” Featured in Bon Appetit, Food and
Wine and Southern Living magazines, she also made appearances on the
Discovery Channel’s “Great Chefs” series, as well as some recent
appearances on the Food Network and Turner Broadcasting's "Off The
Menu" show.     Debra has been named as one of America’s top ten ‘Modern
Master Chefs”, by John Mariani.
        “Debra is cooking some of the most exciting food in the [S.E.]
region,” says Mariani, respected food writer for Wine Spectator,
Esquire, and Spirit magazines, among others. “There’s a real commitment
to wine here as well”. Under the direction of husband, Ernie Paquette,
ZOLA’s wine list has been the recipient of the Wine Spectator “Award of
Excellence” four years in a row.
     Located at the corner of West End and 29th Ave. S. in Nashville, TN,
ZOLA serves dinner from 5:30-10 PM Monday-Thursday and 5:30-11 PM
Friday and Saturday. Reservations are suggested, but not required.
(615) 320-7778. Visit our web site www.restaurant.zola.com

Renée Kasman
Pastry Chef

    After working for acclaimed Chef Debra Paquette at the Bound’ry
restaurant during the mid-nineties, Renée Kasman joined Debra to open
ZOLA restaurant as Pastry Chef in 1997. Renée bakes all of ZOLA’s
breads, crackers and pastries, as well as creating signature frozen
desserts like her orange-basil sorbet and the Jack Daniels milk
chocolate ice cream.
    All of ZOLA’s breads and desserts on premise, in addition, Renée runs
ZOLA’s wholesale dessert operation that serves other fine restaurants.
Some of the creations you’ll find at ZOLA are her freshly baked fennel
raisin twists, cheese filled stromboli and pumpkin challah. Dessert
specials change daily and include homemade ice creams, sorbets and
Belgian Callebaut chocolate treats, like her Dark Chocolate Chambord
Truffle Cake.
    Renée works hard to stay on top of the cutting edge trends in baking.
She has taken special classes from notable pastry chefs, like New York
City’s Bill Yosses and Sherry Yard from Spago in Los Angeles.
    Recently, she recieved honors from both the Nashville Scene and the
CitySearch’s Best Of Nashville Poll, as “Nashville’s Best Pastry Chef”
and “Nashville’s Best Dessert”. Renée has also won the Girls Scout
Cookie Dessert Contest, sponsored by the Tennessee Council of Girl
Scouts and in the summer of 2005, she won the Second Harvest Ice Cream
Contest.
    “The challenge of working with one of the best chefs in Nashville, has
been a rewarding experience,” says Renée. “Debra has pushed me to
experiment more in creating ZOLA’s in house bakery.”

Ernie Paquette

Television personality Ernie Paquette has been living on Tennessee’s
wild side for the last seventeen years as the owner of South Harpeth
Outfitters, Nashville’s oldest fly fishing and light tackle guide
service. As one of the Wild Side Guides on Tennessee’s Wild Side PBS
TV show, Ernie takes viewers across the Volunteer state, chasing his
favorite finned species.

Born and raised on Cape Cod, Massachusetts, Ernie has been involved in
both the sport and commercial fishing industries since the
mid-seventies. His angling adventures have taken him from Spain to
Alaska, Italy to the Bahamas, chasing trout, bonefish, tarpon, salmon,
sailfish, striped bass and bluefin tuna, among other species.

Prior to his becoming a Wild Side Guide, Ernie had made numerous TV
appearances on ESPN, Tennessee Crossroads and the Bill Hall Show.
Though he’s probably best known as a fishing guide, Ernie is also a
nationally published outdoor writer and photographer. His magazine
credits include American Angler, Warmwater Fly Fishing, Southern
Outdoors, In-Fisherman, Bassin’ and Tennessee Valley Outdoors. An
English major from University of Massachusetts, he spent a year as the
Fly Fishing Editor for Tennessee Angler and another two years as the
Outdoor Editor for Nashville Life Magazine.

A leader in fisheries conservation, Ernie has worked closely with the
Tennessee Legislature and the Wildlife Commission to bring about
changes in fish management. He is currently a Board member of the
Cumberland Chapter of Trout Unlimited. He also serves as the Chairman
of the Legislative Review Committee for the Tennessee Council of Trout
Unlimited. Ernie was honored in 1996, when the American Fisheries
Society presented him with their annual “Friends of Fisheries Award”
for his “Dedication and Loyal Support of Fisheries Projects Across
Tennessee.”

For Ernie, it’s not just all about water. As the owner of ZOLA, voted
“Nashville’s Best Restaurant” three years in a row, he knows a little
bit about wine too. Partnered with his wife Debra, co-owner and chef of
ZOLA, Ernie has traveled extensively throughout Spain, France and Italy
in search of great food, wine and fishing.