A view behind-the-scenes reveals the hot and cold of curing ham. At a New York dinner party hosted in her honor, Vivian serves up a gift of NC seasoning meats - the pig tails, ham hocks, and fatback that give Carolina cuisine its quintessential kick. While in the Big Apple, a visit with her publisher reveals an itinerary certain to make for an ambitious autumn.

A view behind-the-scenes reveals the hot and cold of curing ham. At a New York dinner party hosted in her honor, Vivian serves up a gift of NC seasoning meats - the pig tails, ham hocks, and fatback that give Carolina cuisine its quintessential kick. While in the Big Apple, a visit with her publisher reveals an itinerary certain to make for an ambitious autumn.

Late winter brings "run-up" turnip greens, which Vivian sees as central to her approach to Southern food, capturing both the spirit and the letter of what Chef and the Farmer is all about. Ms. Scarlett helps out by procuring greens from a local produce stand, washing them four times and discussing the how-to of buying and cooking good turnips to satisfy her "Southern people." Vivian downs a "cocktail for courage" as she awaits the arrival of Ben and Karen Barker, her culinary heroes. Her nerves are for naught - the Barkers are her big fans.

Vivian's cookbook delivery sparks emotions as the reality of wheeling a food truck around the country sets in. The crew does a practice run at the farmer's market, serving up a dish with pear relish that pleases most--but not Ms. Lillie.

Vivian's cookbook delivery sparks emotions as the reality of wheeling a food truck around the country sets in. The crew does a practice run at the farmer's market, serving up a dish with pear relish that pleases most--but not Ms. Lillie.

Follow Vivian as she heads to NYC, where her book launch means a full itinerary. Back at the shop, Ben and crew ready the food truck for its first stop in Nashville. While there, a lack of rain leads Vivian on a challenging hunt for broccoli.

A dinner in Vivian's honor ends as an American history lesson. A tour of Maker's Mark and Jefferson's distilleries clarifies the whiskey, scotch and bourbon differences. Vivian learns how Frank and Jesse James fit into Kentucky's boozy biography.

Vivian takes the twins to pick persimmons and learns about the different varieties of the fruit. She then takes that knowledge to Atlanta. Back in Kinston, she gets a pudding lesson from chef Bill Smith of Crook's Corner in Chapel Hill.

As Vivian waits for spring's vegetables to appear, she pauses to appreciate chicken's endless capacity as an ingredient. The restaurant's new best-seller is a whole chicken, pounded and stuffed with broccoli salad. An old family friend fries a chicken the old-fashioned way, served with a side of banana sandwiches. Spring brings the twins' birthday, and Vivian can't help but go over the top with celebrations, including the Cadillac of chicken coops to house Theo and Flo's new baby chicks.

Follow Vivian as she heads to NYC, where her book launch means a full itinerary. Back at the shop, Ben and crew ready the food truck for its first stop in Nashville. While there, a lack of rain leads Vivian on a challenging hunt for broccoli.

Vivian visits a restaurant known for fried liver and learns that not all livers are created equal, but all are equally good for you. Mrs. Scarlett's humble beef liver and onions inspires Vivian to add a fancy, controversial liver dish to the menu.

Vivian visits a Kinston institution that merges cornbread with another Southern signature to make "pig and a puppy," then crafts a version for a charity dinner. Mrs. Scarlett and Ms. Lillie's cornbread cook-off showcases their different traditions.

Chef Vivian and her husband, Ben, leave New York to open a restaurant in her small North Carolina hometown. Vivian revisits the Southern tradition of "putting up" corn and shares her method for making smoked corn relish. As the episode concludes, a devastating setback threatens their new life.

Vivian and Ben rebuild their restaurant against the backdrop of the Southern harbinger of spring, the strawberry. Their twins go on their first strawberry-picking excursion, and Vivian and a friend develop a recipe for coconut cornbread strawberry shortcake with basil whipped cream.

Vivian hunts for ramps - Appalachian wild leeks - with renowned bacon purveyor Alan Benton near his home in the Tennessee countryside. Vivian's "ramp dealer" brings her his freshest stash, foraged from the North Carolina mountains. Proud grandparents watch as Theo and Flo show off a piglet and a baby goat at the county agriculture show. Vivian uses ramps like a spring onion, making a compound butter and pimped grits, and serving up grilled ramps, pickled ramps and sauteed ramps at a dinner party.

A dinner in Vivian's honor ends as an American history lesson. A tour of Maker's Mark and Jefferson's distilleries clarifies the whiskey, scotch and bourbon differences. Vivian learns how Frank and Jesse James fit into Kentucky's boozy biography.

Vivian goes about christening the restaurant's new "whole animal, no waste" program with two little pigs from Warren Brothers' farm. She uses everything - including the skin - and, on her father's recommendation, demonstrates how to make sweet potatoes with cracklins.

Vivian learns the old-timey way to can tomatoes. She prepares for a Southern Foodways Alliance luncheon where food enthusiasts from around the country are coming to study BBQ, and Vivian plans to serve them the ultimate tomato sandwich.

Vivian explores the new culture of farm-raised oysters. She and Ben plan to open an oyster bar in hopes it will add character and variety to the tiny town's dining scene. Vivian and her dad orchestrate their family's first-ever oyster roast.

Ben, Vivian and the twins pick muscadine grapes at a small local vineyard while learning the history of this native grape. Vivian visits Mike and Gator, her grape suppliers, and makes homemade wine. Back at the restaurant, Vivian makes a pizza with mulled muscadines, and Ben tests this new creation during their first stressful pizza night in the wine shop.

Vivian finally makes good on a promise to cook for a friend's supper club, and she seizes the moment to experiment with an egg dish that she hopes will wow New York City's James Beard House crowd. She visits with her egg producer and learns the ins and outs of egg varieties, from chickens to ducks to guineas to partridges. She takes us through how to boil an egg and shares Miss Scarlett's secrets for a southern party staple: the perfect deviled egg. In the restaurant, Vivian anxiously prepares for her gala James Beard Foundation dinner, a new kind of debut in the food world.

Vivian takes the twins to pick persimmons and learns about the different varieties of the fruit. She then takes that knowledge to Atlanta. Back in Kinston, she gets a pudding lesson from chef Bill Smith of Crook's Corner in Chapel Hill.

Vivian visits a peanut farm just before and during harvest. At the restaurant, she translates an old school break snack, a pack of salted peanuts dumped into Pepsi in a glass bottle and into Pepsi-glazed pork belly with country ham and braised peanuts.

Vivian introduces viewers to Rob and Amy Hill, proprietors of one of the largest sweet potato farms in the country and two of the restaurant's best customers. Vivian and her mom, Scarlett, make her grandmother's candied yams, and Vivian later re-imagines these for the restaurant with texture, sorghum and pecans. Mother Earth Brewery and Chef & the Farmer team up for a beer dinner, featuring first-of-the-season sweet potatoes.

Follow Vivian on a farm visit to hear about the Eastern Carolina ingredient with a cult following: the cabbage collard. She prepares for Terra Vita, an event where she will serve 100 people and make collards the star they deserve to be.

Follow Vivian and Ben to a dairy where Ben savors a cup of buttermilk. Then, Vivian's nieces and nephews desperately try to make buttermilk with their great-grandmother's butter churn.

A month of planning and preparation peaks as Vivian's invitation to cook at the prestigious James Beard House becomes a reality. Warren Brothers, his wife, Jane, and other friends from Kinston bring their particular brand of Eastern North Carolina charm, making everyone feel at right at home. As Warren and company charm the pants off the fancy food writers and television critics, Vivian frets about perfectly cracking 85 eggs for each plate. But before she can get there, the deep fryer breaks, bringing the Beard House a lot closer to hell's kitchen.

Vivian plans a respite from the road during the holidays, but is busy at home. She volunteers at a soup kitchen and does one last book signing in Kinston. She prepares a Feast of the Seven Fishes dinner where trout - from roe to filet - shines.

After a year recovering from a restaurant fire and re-opening Chef and the Farmer, Vivian and Ben open a burger/oyster bar called the Boiler Room. Vivian boils over with the stress of staffing adjustments, testing new menu concepts and the task of putting 500 pounds of blueberries to good use. She dons a hairnet and bubbles with excitement at the sight of her blueberry BBQ sauce hitting the assembly line. The staff of Chef and the Farmer finally lets off some steam with a growler cocktail and a blueberry BBQ water park extravaganza.

Vivian and Ben head to the beach for their annual summer vacation with the Howard family. Vivian turns up the heat with a bit of friendly competition with her older sisters. Frogmore stew, cooked outside at the beach, of course. She visits a fish camp and learns the heads and tails of fresh shrimp. Back in Kinston, the devil is in the details as Vivian and Ben prepare to open their second restaurant, the Boiler Room, and controversy brews over the bun for the burgers.

Burgers. Oysters. Beer. Vivian and Ben are on the cusp of opening their new restaurant, the Boiler Room, and they're facing a new challenge: how to make a veggie burger stand out. Vivian chooses the beloved butterbean as the star of her new burger, but quickly learns that the bean is a straight up diva - the Aretha Franklin of the legume family - when it comes to growing conditions. After a wet spring, Warren's patch is abysmal, but with the help of onions and gouda, eggplant and garlic, Vivian's butterbean burger is the talk of opening night.

Vivian, Ben and the entire Chef and the Farmer staff hustle to complete the preparations necessary for her luncheon at the Southern Foodways Alliance symposium in Oxford, Mississippi. At the center of her generation-spanning meal is the Tom Thumb, a pungent and rich sausage stuffed into a pig's appendix. As preparations get underway, the sheer math of the moment is astounding: four courses for 400 food writers and Southern food enthusiasts - 1,600 plates in the span of 90 minutes. Vivian greets this honor with terror and sheer force of will, leaving a long prep day with a sense of pride and excitement.

The excitement of the night before turns into heightened emotion and real nerves for Vivian as she faces one challenge after another in the prep kitchen before the SFA luncheon. Wondering at the sanity of this undertaking, she's glad to have Chef Jason Vincent to lend some street cred to the whole endeavor. Rice almost brings Vivian to her breaking point, but everyone pulls together for the big event and her parents join her on stage for an emotional and watershed moment.

Vivian visits a restaurant known for fried liver and learns that not all livers are created equal, but all are equally good for you. Mrs. Scarlett's humble beef liver and onions inspires Vivian to add a fancy, controversial liver dish to the menu.

Vivian visits a Kinston institution that merges cornbread with another Southern signature to make "pig and a puppy," then crafts a version for a charity dinner. Mrs. Scarlett and Ms. Lillie's cornbread cook-off showcases their different traditions.

Ben, Vivian and the twins pick muscadine grapes at a small local vineyard while learning the history of this native grape. Vivian visits Mike and Gator, her grape suppliers, and makes homemade wine. Back at the restaurant, Vivian makes a pizza with mulled muscadines, and Ben tests this new creation during their first stressful pizza night in the wine shop.

Ben, Vivian and the twins pick muscadine grapes at a small local vineyard while learning the history of this native grape. Vivian visits Mike and Gator, her grape suppliers, and makes homemade wine. Back at the restaurant, Vivian makes a pizza with mulled muscadines, and Ben tests this new creation during their first stressful pizza night in the wine shop.

Ben, Vivian and the twins pick muscadine grapes at a small local vineyard while learning the history of this native grape. Vivian visits Mike and Gator, her grape suppliers, and makes homemade wine. Back at the restaurant, Vivian makes a pizza with mulled muscadines, and Ben tests this new creation during their first stressful pizza night in the wine shop.

Ben, Vivian and the twins pick muscadine grapes at a small local vineyard while learning the history of this native grape. Vivian visits Mike and Gator, her grape suppliers, and makes homemade wine. Back at the restaurant, Vivian makes a pizza with mulled muscadines, and Ben tests this new creation during their first stressful pizza night in the wine shop.

Ben, Vivian and the twins pick muscadine grapes at a small local vineyard while learning the history of this native grape. Vivian visits Mike and Gator, her grape suppliers, and makes homemade wine. Back at the restaurant, Vivian makes a pizza with mulled muscadines, and Ben tests this new creation during their first stressful pizza night in the wine shop.