The Dish: Chef John Currence
If you're destined to become a chef, the food-centric city of New Orleans isn't a bad place to grow up. John Currence was born and raised there by a family that loved to cook and loved to travel. After cooking jobs around the South, Currence settled in Oxford, Mississippi, in 1992 and opened City Grocery. It won him the 1992 James Beard Award for Best Chef in the South. Now his City Grocery Restaurant Group includes Big Bad Breakfast with locations in four states. That's also the title of his second and most recent cookbook.