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John Avey has been
a television photojournalist for over 20 years. In
the
course of his career, John has photographed documentaries
in Costa Rica,
Mexico, India and the former Soviet Union. He has
covered everything from
political conventions to riots, floods, bombings and
wars. John has worked
for major US network news organizations including
NBC, CBS, ABC, and CNN.
"The trip
to India was one of the most exciting and interesting
assignments
I have ever had", says John. "The very nature
of the documentary,
experiencing "hidden" India -- the places
and people most tourists never
see, was very rewarding and I believe the pictures
we took there will reward
the viewer too". |
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With a Ph.D. in History and Archeology, Dr. Bruce
Kraig is Professor
Emeritus in History and Humanities at Roosevelt University
in Chicago.
Professor Kraig has taught courses in history, prehistory,
popular culture,
the history of food, world cultures, film and television
documentaries, and
travel and tourism. He has lectured on these subjects
in the United States,
Europe, Latin America, and Australia and has an international
reputation as
a food historian with special emphasis on the cultural
significance of food
and television programs in these fields.
Dr. Kraig has appeared
widely in the electronic media as an on-camera host
and narrator, and as an expert in the field of food
history. He has been the
host, writer, and historian for the American Broadcast
Services (PBS)
documentaries Hidden China, Hidden Mexico, Food For
The Ancestors, Hidden
India: The Kerala Spicelands. He has also hosted his
own television program
about food in the Chicago area, "Traveling Fare,"
and two radio series,
"The Mysterious World," and "Chicago's
Food."
He has been used as an authority on food history and
cultures on the following programs: ABC National News,
Nightline, Good Morning America, Fox News, NBC News,
Good Morning Australia, BBC News, Public Television,
Los Angeles, Telemundo (Mexico), and various cable
shows. Radio appearances have been frequent, including
multiple appearances on National Public Radio, WGN-Chicago,
and many other Chicago stations. He has also appeared
on stations in Canada, Detroit, San Jose, CA, San
Francisco, Los Angeles, New York, and Boston, among
others. Recently he was the main speaker on "Talk
of the Nation," National Public Radio, July 1999
on "History of the Hot Dog," and the main
authority of hot dog history in documentary, "History
on a Bun," History Channel, 1999.
Professor Kraig has spoken worldwide including: Australia,
where he
delivered the keynote address at the Australian Symposium
on Gastronomy; he
delivered the keynote address to America's food editors
at the 1998
Pillsbury Bake-Off on the topic of the rise of ethnic
foods in America. He
also gave the keynote address to the 1998 Tablescapes
conference at the
Columbus (Ohio) Museum of Art entitled, "Rude
Food, Dining Déclassé." He has
been a regular contributor and speaker at the Oxford
(England) Symposium on
Food and Cookery since 1985 when he delivered and
internationally discussed
(and reviled) paper on "Cynophagy' (dog eating).
More recently, he has
addressed the national meetings of the Fullbright
Association Scholars, Les
Dames d' Escoffier, the Foodservice Executives Association,
and the
international symposium on culture and tourism at
Sokch'o University, Korea.
Dr. Kraig is the author of several cookbooks, most
recently, The Cuisines of
Hidden Mexico, John Wiley, 1996 and editor of Favorite
Recipes: A Columbian
Exposition Autograph Souvenir Cookbook (1893), University
of Illinois Press,
2000. He has written numerous articles on food and
food history, world
cultures and travel. For fifteen years he was the
food columnist for a
suburban Chicago newspaper, The Wednesday Journal,
where he investigated
every aspect of the food industry, as well as topics
in food history and
culture. He also writes for the major Chicago daily
newspapers, notably his
major article on the history of Chicago food for the
150th anniversary of
the Chicago Tribune and recent articles on international
and ethnic foods
(including Korean) for the Chicago Sun-Times. At present
he writing a books
on the culinary history of Chicago and on the history
and iconography of hot
dog stands in America. Additionally, he has published
widely in the fields
of history and prehistory and his Elementary and High
School textbooks on
World History, World Cultures, and American history
have been adopted
nationally.
Professor Kraig is the founding and continuing President
of the Culinary
Historians of Chicago. He is also a Board Member of
the Center for
Ethnographic and Documentary Research and on the Editorial
Board of the
Culinary History Publications Series for the University
of Illinois Press.
Recently, he was appointed Senior Editor of the new
multi-volume Oxford
Encyclopedia of American Food (Oxford University Press)
which is set for
publication in 2003.
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Jan Thompson is an award winning documentarian.
The twenty-three year
broadcast veteran has been the creator of the series
Hidden-Journeys with
her husband Bruce Kraig. The programs of Hidden-Journeys
(Hidden China,
Hidden Mexico, Food For The Ancestors, Hidden Korea)
have been broadcast on
PBS and on several international television stations
including AsiaTV and
REI. She recently produced the documentary The Music
Masters which profiled
Daniel Barenboim, the renowned conductor of the
Chicago Symphony. Before
entering the world of documentary work, Ms. Thompson
was a producer and
director of live-sports programs, including the
Chicago White Sox, Chicago
Blackhawks and the Chicago Bulls and several Chicago
area university sports.
She worked personally with Michael Jordan producing
public service
announcements for his foundation.
Ms. Thompson is a two-time Emmy award winner with
over eight Emmy
nominations. Winner of the Chris from Columbus International
Film and Video
Festival she has also captured the Herman Kogan
Media Award, Chicago's
prestigious journalism award for the documentary
Education: The Racecard.
Her international awards also include two Lenta
de Platas: Gastronomy and
Culture.
Ms. Thompson is currently working on Hidden Turkey
and a documentary of
American POW's during World War II. She is on faculty
in the
Radio-Television Department of Southern Illinois
University and is Director
of the Documentary Unit.
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Elizabeth Dunlop Richter is principal of The Richter
Group, a content and
media strategy consulting firm focused on the delivery
of educational
content to the public across multiple media platforms.
Her clients include
the Field Museum, the Northeastern Illinois Planning
Commission, the Adler
Planetarium, PBS and Food for Thought Productions.
She is on the advisory
boards of Zula, Inc., an educational publishing
and production company and
EVO Knowledge, an online learning company. Her background
includes senior
management positions in public and commercial television,
theater and
Internet-delivered education. She additionally writes
columns for the
Chicago Sun-Times.
Most recently, she was the Senior Vice President
of Content and Production
for InLight, Incorporated, a $30 million start-up
that delivered interactive
educational healthcare content via video, DVD, and
the Internet to patients,
hospitals and medical groups. Previously, she was
Director of Theater at
American Girl Place in Chicago, a retail/entertainment
complex owned by
Pleasant Company, a subsidiary of Mattel, Inc. She
established and managed
the company's first live theater and produced stage
musicals, television
pilots and music CDs based on the company's award-winning
educational
products for girls.
Before joining Pleasant Company, Ms. Richter held
a series of management
positions at WTTW, Chicago's primary public television
station, including
Vice President of Production and Vice President
of National Development. At
WTTW, she launched the magazine series Wild Chicago,
the nightly news
analysis program Chicago Tonight and was executive
producer of the film
review series Sneak Previews. Before joining WTTW,
Ms. Richter was a news
producer and executive producer for programming
at WLS-TV, ABC's owned
television station in Chicago, where she recruited
Oprah Winfrey to host AM
Chicago. During her career at WLS, she received
nine Emmy nominations and
won the Chicago Emmy for her work as producer of
Eyewitness Chicago, voted
Best News Magazine.
Ms. Richter's professional affiliations include
The Economic Club of Chicago
of which she is a past board member and the Chicago
Network on whose board
she currently serves. She is a member of the boards
of the Chapin Hall
Center for Children at the University of Chicago,
the alternative design
school Archeworks, the Women's Board of Rush-Presbyterian
St. Luke's
Hospital, and the Guild of the Chicago Historical
Society. She also serves
on the Community Advisory Board of the Junior League
of Chicago. Ms.
Richter is a past board member of the Chicago Chapter
of the National
Academy of Television Arts and Science. She is active
in the Wellesley
College Alumnae Association, the Culinary Historians
of Chicago, and the
American Heart Association.
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Ralph Scalise is Coordinator of Service Learning
and Public Service
Practicum and a Master Teacher at Elk Grove High
School (H.S. Dist. 214),
where he also teaches Italian and World Studies.
He has been teaching for
20 years and received his undergraduate degree in
History/Education from
Northeastern Illinois University. He also holds
Master's degrees in History
(Roosevelt University) and Education (St. Xavier
University).
He is well known for his innovative approach to
teaching and developing
curricula both in his home school and within District
214, one of the
largest in Illinois. Among his widely used curricula
are those for Japan,
Mexico, Italy, the United Kingdom and Australia.
His sources for these
lesson plans are his many travels across the globe,
having visited every
continent except Antarctica. Scalise also has developed
numerous teacher
institutes for training teachers in the use of documentaries
in the
classroom, specifically the Hidden- Journeys series.
An adept photographer, he has worked closely with
the producers on all
aspects of the television series, and has been an
indispensable member of
the Food for Thought team since 1993.
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