Dr. Jessica B. Harris is a culinary historian and the author of twelve critically acclaimed books documenting the foods and foodways of the African Diaspora, including High on the Hog: A Culinary Journey from Africa to America, which was transformed into a four-part Netflix docuseries in 2021. My Soul Looks Back: A Memoir was a finalist for the PEN Open Book Award. Her most recent book is Vintage Postcards from the African World: In the Dignity of their Work and the Joy of Their Play. Harris is professor emerita at Queens College, CUNY, and holds an AB from Bryn Mawr College; an MA in French literature from Queens College, CUNY; a Licence ès Lettres from the Université de Nancy, France; and a doctorate in performance studies from New York University. She was the inaugural scholar in residence in the Ray Charles Chair at Dillard University in New Orleans. Harris has received many honors, including a Lifetime Achievement Award from the Southern Foodways Alliance, the Amelia Award from the New York Culinary Historians, and the Carol DeMasters Service to Food Journalism Award from the Association of Food Journalists. Harris was named to the James Beard Foundation’s Who’s Who of Food and Beverage in America in 2010, her cookbooks were inducted into the James Beard Cookbook Hall of Fame in 2019, and in 2020 she was given a Lifetime Achievement Award by the same organization. Harris was named one of the world’s 100 most influential people in 2021 by TIME magazine. 

Melissa Araujo is a seasoned chef and coffee lover living in New Orleans with a diverse culinary background and an insatiable passion for cooking and sharing her story through feeding others. She was born in La Ceiba, the third-largest city on the Atlantic coast of Honduras. Growing up Araujo spent summers in Honduras on her grandmother’s farm, a time she describes as one of her most cherished memories, allowing her to learn about her heritage, cultivate a love for cooking at a young age, and help her family on the farm. She spent the remainder of the year in Providence, Rhode Island, where life was vastly different, but also influenced her personal development and culinary style. Around the age of 16 she and her family relocated to New Orleans. Life, family, heritage, and the city inspired her to enter the culinary industry. After graduating high school she immediately took advantage of any and every opportunity to cultivate her passion for cooking, working her way up in local restaurants, continuously growing and evolving as a chef. When she’s not in the kitchen she enjoys spending time at the beach with her two dogs, Charlotte and Maximilian, or traveling the world to discover new places and culinary experiences. Araujo enjoys getting lost in the culture and experience of new places, and uses this as inspiration for the experiences she delivers through her cooking. 

Lisa Blount is the marketing and menu development director for Antoine’s Restaurant. She works closely with her husband Rick Blount, the fifth-generation CEO, and his team on ongoing strategies for keeping its 184 years of historic traditions intact as well as evolving for the restaurant consumers of today. Lisa comes to Antoine’s with over 30 years of marketing and national sales experience in fine wine, spirits, and food. She is originally from Seattle, but has thoroughly embraced her new home of New Orleans and all its food and beverage traditions. 

Megan Braden-Perry is an author, award-winning journalist, multigenerational Black Creole New Orleans native, and mom. In addition to her own books, Braden-Perry’s byline has appeared in NOLA.com | The Times-Picayune, Gambit Weekly, Bon Appetit, Epicurious, Oxford American, The New York Times, and many, many more. She’s covered everything, including New Orleans culture, Black culture, food, drink, travel, crime, education, parenting, religion, Creole culture, and politics. 

Braden-Perry is the recipient of a 2025 Black Women in Food Amplifier award, a 2024 Dillard University 40 Under 40 award, the 2024 New Orleans Tourism and Cultural Fund Literary Arts and Humanities award, the 2017 Delta Sigma Theta New Orleans alumnae Artie Award in literature, and a 2013 Press Club of New Orleans Excellence in Journalism award. 

When she’s not writing, she’s hanging out with her son, Franklin. Her best friend Jenny says she’ll “talk to the Devil for a sandwich,” and that is the most accurate biographical detail to date. 

Ralph Brennan is the third-generation patriarch of a restaurant family synonymous with New Orleans cuisine and is a hands-on operator and visionary leader who practices a “people first” philosophy. Steeped in the industry as a consummate professional, Ralph owns and operates five high-energy, high-experience restaurants (Brennan’s, Napoleon House, Red Fish Grill, Ralph’s on the Park, and Café NOMA) that stand apart for a commitment to inspired, locally-sourced cuisine and gracious hospitality served up in New Orleans’s most revered and iconic dining rooms. Ralph is also the proprietor of a New Orleans–based commissary bakery and a catering and events company. Ralph operates the Jazz Kitchen in the Downtown Disney District at the Disneyland Resort.

Heading the Dooky Chase kitchen is Leah Chase’s grandson, Edgar “Dook” Chase IV, the third person in the restaurant’s 80-year history to serve as executive chef. Only his grandmother and great-grandmother preceded him. Dook has a master’s degree in business administration and was a successful accountant until he decided to focus on his passion for cooking. When he was about 15, he started working the front of the house, waiting and busing tables, but eventually he made it into the kitchen and learned by cooking at his grandmother’s side. In addition to that hands-on training, he also graduated from an intensive six-month culinary program at the Cordon Bleu in Paris. He is Owner/President of Chase Concessions, LLC, Executive Chef at Dooky Chase’s Restaurant, proprietor of Chapter IV, Leah’s Kitchen and Dook’s Burgers and a partner in a number of other restaurants in the New Orleans International Airport.

Eve Marie Haydel, beverage manager at Dooky Chase’s Restaurant, has a taste for adventure ranging from corporate to cocktails. The craft cocktail enthusiast and connoisseur also mixes it up as a senior business operations analyst for a media broadcast company. Eve Marie’s passion for bartending and mixology began with her growing up, working in her family’s restaurant, and admiring her grandfather’s cocktail creations and conversations with her grandmother about women-run bars in New Orleans. This eventually led to her completing bartending school over 10 years ago as a balance to her role as a financial analyst. Since then, Eve Marie has honed her craft at restaurants, private events, and parties throughout Atlanta and has returned home to New Orleans to re-energize, learn, and build the bar program for the Chase family brand. 

Ian Julian was born in Philadelphia and raised in North Carolina. At the age of 21, he moved to New Orleans to pursue his passion for cooking, attending bartending and culinary school during the day and working at night. During his bartender training, he discovered his love for craft cocktails and the use of fresh ingredients in creating new and unique drinks. Ian excelled in bartender training and was given the opportunity to work with renowned craft cocktail maker Daniel Victory at Victory, where he became the first and most frequent guest bartender. He also played a key role in opening the bar and managing inventory for all beverage services at the Hyatt Regency after Hurricane Katrina. Ian also created the entire bar program for a restaurant called Dominique, focusing the menu on cocktails made with fresh, locally sourced ingredients. Ian further expanded his skills in management at the Monkey Board at the Troubadour Hotel, where he arranged private parties and managed entertainment on weekends. He also helped chef Charly Pierre create the bar program for Fritai, a Haitian restaurant known for its outstanding cocktails. After a quick stop in Chicago to assist in opening a Black-owned restaurant and winery in Bronzeville, Ian returned to New Orleans. Most recently, he was involved in creating and building the bar program for the historically Black-owned music venue, the Dew Drop Inn. In addition to his hands-on experience, Ian has garnered recognition for his work, including being featured in Treme: Stories and Recipes from the Heart of New Orleans, and in publications such as NOLA.com and The Local Palate. He has also participated in various competitions, including the 2012 Most Imaginative Bartender competition hosted by GQ and Bombay Sapphire in Las Vegas.  

Peggy Scott Laborde is an Emmy Award-winning producer and the host/producer of Steppin’ Out, New Orleans’s only weekly arts and entertainment discussion program, now in its 38th season on WYES-TV. 

Laborde is a board member of the City Park Improvement Association and the New Orleans Museum of Art. She served as the president of the Tennessee Williams and New Orleans Literary Festival for a total of 14 years and continues to serve on the Festival's board. She is also the co-author of four books and has produced over 30 documentaries for WYES focusing on the food, culture and history of New Orleans. Laborde is the producer of documentaries on the history of the French Quarter, St. Charles Avenue, Canal Street and Bourbon Street. 

Judge Edwin A. Lombard has dedicated nearly five decades to the legal profession, leaving an indelible mark on Louisiana’s judiciary. From his extensive tenure as Clerk of the Criminal District Court for Orleans Parish to his position as a judge on the 4th Circuit Court of Appeal, Lombard’s influence is profound. His global impact includes involvement in drafting laws for historic events and sharing legal expertise internationally. Beyond the courtroom, Lombard’s legacy includes mentorship, leadership, and service, shaping the lives of countless legal professionals while furthering the mission of the Loyola University New Orleans College of Law and the Louisiana State Bar Association.

Justin Nystrom is a historian of the 19th and 20th century English-speaking world and is the Rev. James J. Pillar OMI Distinguished Professor of History at Loyola University New Orleans. He is the author of New Orleans after the Civil War: Race, Politics, and a New Birth of Freedom and Creole Italian: Sicilian Immigrants and the Making of New Orleans Food Culture, which was nominated for a James Beard Foundation Award. Nystrom writes on many topics but at its heart, all of his work explores the ways that people have adapted to the challenges of profound transformations in politics, society, economics, and technology. He lives in New Orleans with his spouse Jess and two sons, a spotted dog, and a surprisingly nice yellow cat. 

Drinks historian Elizabeth Pearce is the founder of Drink and Learn, through which she offers cocktail tours and classes as well as virtual happy hours, sharing New Orleans and American history through drinks. She is the host of the Drink and Learn podcast, author of Drink Dat New Orleans, co-author of the French Quarter Drinking Companion, and the monthly cocktail columnist for New Orleans Magazine. She is also an educator for the Sazerac Company and in 2017 was named a “Person to Watch” by New Orleans Magazine. Prior to creating Drink and Learn, Pearce was the founding senior curator of the Southern Food and Beverage Museum and was responsible for creating its early exhibits including Toast of New Orleans: The Drinks of the City. Her exhibit Restaurant Restorative, commissioned by the James Beard Awards, honored the role New Orleans restaurants played in the city’s recovery following Hurricane Katrina. She likes her desk messy and her whiskey neat. 

Zella Palmer is an author, professor, filmmaker, curator, scholar, and the chair and director of the Dillard University Ray Charles Program in African American Material Culture in New Orleans, Louisiana. Palmer is committed to documenting and preserving the legacy of African American, Creole, Indigenous, and Latinx culinary history. As the chair of the Dillard University Ray Charles Program, Palmer filmed and produced The Story of New Orleans Creole Cooking: The Black Hand in the Pot documentary. In 2020, under Palmer’s leadership, Dillard University launched a food studies minor, one of two accredited academic food studies programs at an HBCU. Palmer’s latest publications, Recipes and Remembrances of Fair Dillard: 1869–2019 and Ed Mitchell’s Barbeque, share some of her rich research. She received the 2018 Cultural Bearer Award from the Mardi Gras Indian Hall of Fame, was included in New Orleans Magazine’s 2020 People To Watch, and was a 2022 Dine Diaspora Black Women in Food Trailblazer honoree. Palmer hosts the Culture and Flavor podcast on Heritage Radio Network. 

Claudia Portillo is an international undergraduate student at Loyola University New Orleans completing her last year toward a bachelor’s degree in graphic design. Born and raised in Honduras, Claudia always incorporates parts of her cultural identity into her designs and projects to stay loyal to herself. Claudia has always had a great passion for the arts and leaned toward design because of the way it seeks to convey a clear visual message to its audience. She seeks to give a voice and representation of her country to varied audiences, highlighting different aspects of her culture.

Food personality, radio host, and author Poppy Tooker is passionate about food and the people who bring it to the table. For over a decade, Poppy has combined these elements in her award-winning, NPR-affiliated radio show, Louisiana Eats! Poppy also provides restaurant commentary on the weekly PBS show, Steppin’ Out. Author of many popular cookbooks, including for Tujague’s, Pascal’s Manale, and Tony Mandina’s, Poppy also covers the local food scene in her monthly column for Biz New Orleans. Poppy’s most recent book, Drag Queen Brunch, combined brunch recipes from New Orleans restaurants with photos and stories of the city’s best drag queens. With her motto, “Eat it to save it,” Poppy was instrumental in reviving many endangered foods and food traditions through the International Slow Food Movement. She was named a “Hero of the Storm” by the Times-Picayune and recognized by the International Association of Cooking with their first Community Service Award for her work reviving New Orleans restaurants and food providers after Hurricane Katrina. Southern Living also named Poppy a “Hero of the New South.”