[Music plays] I spent all year waiting to bite into the first tomato still warm from the sun.

And I spent the next four months gorging myself on what I would go out on a limb and call my favorite ingredient.

I'm Vivian and I'm a chef.

My husband Ben and I were working for some of the best chefs in New York City when my parents offered to help us open our own restaurant.

Of course, there was a catch.

We had to open this restaurant in Eastern North Carolina, where I grew up and said I would never return.

The Avett Brothers perform "Will You Return" The Avett Brothers perform "Will You Return" So this is my life.

Raising twins, living in the house I grew up in, and exploring the south, one ingredient at a time.

Previously on A Chef's Life We had a fire in the kitchen.

Just, you know, we're basically having to start over.

[Music plays] We're doing a trial run tonight with a bunch of our staff and my family.

Rib eye medium!

Wait, that's not right.

I'm very excited.

I'm really glad to be open.

[Music plays] Okay, that's Dollard, party of four at six o clock.

Thank you.

Alright Rick, let's bring two tomato pies.

The restaurant's been open about a month and we are definitely over our vacation.

We have been extremely busy.

All the press about the fire really just made a lot of people very curious to come and eat here.

We had three to four very bad weeks of service and the new computer system ended up being returned.

It's been a very stressful reintroduction I think for everyone.

Taste these?

Yeah I think they were good.

Why?

I'm just a little paranoid.

Today is a very big day for me personally.

We are hosting the Southern Foodways Alliance here at Chef and The Farmer.

John T. Edge the head of the Southern Foodways Alliance.

He writes for the New York Times.

He writes for Garden and Gun Magazine.

All kinds of publications that I want to be in and he's coming today.

Mother, where's my?

Okay, people will be arriving at one o'clock.

Philip, you're going to plate all the sausage biscuits.

Everybody's going to arrive at one time and I want these things to be ready.

Okay, Justise and Alan, y'all are in charge of the sandwiches.

This is the show stopper of this whole thing, okay?

I've been planning for this for weeks and we are serving a vegetarian lunch which I think is pretty risky.

We're serving what I'm calling the ultimate tomato sandwich.

So I'm both excited and nervous and a little bit ready for it to be over.

[Music plays] In May when we reopened it was really perfect timing for our whole seasonal menu because that's the time in North Carolina when things really start coming off strong.

And tomatoes are my favorite ingredient and we do not serve tomatoes in any form except a preserved form outside of May through September.

How are you?

I'm good.

How are you doing?

I'm doing good.

I'm trying to buy all your tomatoes out.

What did she get?

50 pounds?

Yes, 50 pounds of Heirlooms.

That should be good today.

Yep.

Thank you.

Have a great day.

Stay busy.You too.

I grew up in a tomato eating family and I loved eating tomato sandwiches with white bread, mayonnaise, salt and pepper, and there was definitely a tomato in the middle of that but it was as much about the bread and mayonnaise as anything else.

But at some point the tomatoes started tasting different.

I mean they're not as juicy when you get the from the grocery store.

I mean, they're not even the same color.

They're definitely not the same texture but I started seeing these things called Heirloom tomatoes.

They were funny shapes and colors.

They tasted like the tomatoes of my childhood.

Well we have this event in about a week where the center piece is going to be an Heirloom tomato sandwich assuming I can get those from you.

I think we got plenty of different Heirlooms for you to look at.

This is the Black Velvet.

This is the Heirloom that is supposed to be a little firmer.

So we have Black Velvet here.

Black Velvet.

Then we have another new guy to our farm this year.

This is a variety called Chocolate Cherry.

It's an Heirloom type Cherry tomato.

So what makes a tomato an Heirloom?

An Heirloom tomato is a tomato that has remained consistent for almost ever.

For hundreds of years.

The Cherokee Purple tomato has been just like it is.

That's the same seed they'd a been planting a hundred years ago to get the same tomato.

It's not been modified over the years to try to make it better all the time.

Okay I am so happy you cleared that up because Ben and I have had spirited arguments in front of our staff about what an Heirloom tomato is and neither one of us were right actually.

Actually societies have seed banks.

A lot of people are passionate about keeping these varieties just like they are, for their grandkids I guess?

For obvious reasons.

Mmm hmmm.

And here's our favorite.

Oh yeah my favorite!

Old faithful.

Cherokee Purple.

Here's one that's ready for a piece of bread and some mayonnaise.

All my new cooks, we have tomatoes and they are putting them straight into the walk in refrigerator.

Ouch.

I know I know.

That hurts my feelings.

We have a big sit down, come to Jesus talk about that because tomatoes do not belong in the refrigerator.

So can you tell me why so I can better tell them?

The proper storage temperature for a tomato is 55 degrees.

But 55 degrees will stop any ripening that might take place on that tomato so unless that tomato is fully ripe I wouldn't even suggest taking to 55 degrees.

Refrigerating it changes the flavor and the texture.

It does.

The texture is the main thing.

Tomatoes that are shipped across the country in refrigerated trucks for instance, often times they look perfectly fine on the outside, you cut into them and you have a very milly, soft type texture inside.

That's a refrigerated tomato.

Well I do love these and I'm so thrilled that we're probably gonna have them for our luncheon.

It all kind of hinges on the tastiness of this tomato.

-That does make a difference.

-It does.

It sure does make a difference.

[Music plays] We're good, huh?

Cool.

They're all Cherokee Purple.

That's great.

I've been worried about getting these for like two weeks.

So the reason I'm having you and Alan do this is because I can trust that you are going to season them appropriately, okay?

Yeah.

But don't season them until they go on the sandwich because it will draw all the liquid out and we'll have a mushy mess.

-Okay.

-Okay?

We're gonna slice the onion bread length wide, across like a big ol donut.

You're gonna toast lightly.

Smoked corn mayonnaise on both sides.

One layer of tomato.

Salt and pepper.

Another layer of tomato.

Salt and pepper.

Another layer of tomato.

Salt and pepper.

A little bit of the pickled onion and then we are going to slice it very carefully with the serrated knives, okay?

When I was talking to our staff here at the Chef and The Farmer about the art of canning, one of our servers, Susan, shared with me that she had a long time family cook that was really an expert on the subject.

We called on Mary Vaughn to show us how to properly can stewed tomatoes the southern way.

Can you tell me a little bit about yourself?

Haha the only thing I can tell you is and that's it.

You grew up here And you worked for the Burns?

And what kinds of things did you do for them?

Well I washed.

I done the house cleaning and I done the cooking.

So what's the first step in doing this?

The first step is boiling and scalding them.

Pouring this hot water over the tomatoes, what does that actually do?

You see right there?

How the peeling?

Okay so it just makes the peeling come right off and it doesn't cook them really.

No it doesn't cook them.

So we're just gonna slip the skins off.

Take the core out.

Take the core out.

Lily, how do you like your tomato sandwich?

Some mayo and some bacon.

It's good.

This is like so many other things that I grew up hearing my sisters and my mom talk about doing but I came along just a little bit too late to actually learn about.

So what's our next step?

The next step we gonna put it on the stove.

What are you taking off the top there?

Foam.

And why is that important?

I don't know?

Mary, who showed you how to do this?

My mother.

Did she show you or were you just standing at her legs?

I was just there looking and watching her.

Well I'll take the foam off just cause you told me to.

[Laughter] We're getting ready to sterilize our jars and then we're going to spoon the tomatoes into the jars and season em up.

I want you to get one teaspoon of salt, one teaspoon of lemon juice, and one teaspoon of sugar and then I'm going to put the tomatoes in the jar.

[Music plays] One of the things that is interesting to me about this old timey southern cooking is that little pinch of sugar that people are constantly sneaking into things.

I find myself at the restaurant constantly balancing things with just a tad of sugar.

In my opinion that's something that is unique to southern cooking.

It smells real delicious.

It does.

Heavenly.

It's like summertime Well that looks right.

It's good.

I can see why you would put this away for winter though because it's hot in here now and these are hot and I can only imagine what it was like 20 years ago, 30 years ago when there....

I go back further than that.

Twenty years ago they had electric stove.

Go back further than that.

Forty years ago?

Something like that but maybe further back.

When they had a wooden stove and they kept it fired up and you get water from that, your hot water, to wash your dishes and whatever.

Wow, I can't even imagine.

It must have been hotter than the blazes in here.

It was.

It was hot.

Thank you very much Mary.

I really enjoyed it.

I enjoy canning.

There's something really enjoyable about it.

I think it's...

I really enjoy canning.

Alright everybody this is the SFA luncheon.

So we got a flat corn bread with a cucumber goat cheese, pickled beets and pickled cucumber.

The only piece of meat we are going to be seeing today is gonna be in this little sausage biscuit with plum jam and dijon.

When people sit down they are going to have a sugar baby watermelon salad that has a feta and jalapeno vinaigrette.

It is spicy.

Next they're gonna get country fried okra with ranch ice cream.

At the same time that goes to the table they're gonna get an Heirloom tomato sandwich.

The variety of tomatoes are Cherokee Purples.

Y'all know those are my favorite.

They're gonna be topped with some little pickled onions and a smoked corn mayonnaise.

Okay, so this is kind of meant to taste like a BLT without the B.

And this is gonna be done on our onion bread that we make for service so make sure that everyone knows that this is the bread, that we make this bread because we're serving a tomato sandwich people.

This is... it can be misinterpreted as lazy okay so we want people to know we made the bread, we smoked this corn, we made this mayonnaise.

These are tomatoes that are not that easy to find blah, blah, blah.

As much as we need them to eat and kind of leave, let them feel like they're having a leisurely lunch and then clear your section cause essentially they're here to spend their afternoon in Kinston and let's face it, this is gonna be the high light.

[Music plays] Today we are going to make the classic southern summertime dish of tomato pie.

If you were to get a tomato pie pretty much anywhere in the south it would be sliced and seasoned tomatoes stuffed into a pie shell topped with some kind of mayonnaise of course mixture and then baked.

I'm gonna start by blind baking a pie shell.

You would blind bake a pie crust if you are concerned about the crust itself getting soggy.

I'm going to place a layer of foil inside my pie shell and them I'm going to top it with some dried beans.

I'm gonna put this pie shell in a 350 degree oven for about 12 minutes.

For my filling I'm going to use a combination of both roasted and raw tomatoes.

In a traditional tomato pie you would only have raw tomatoes but I really like the depth of flavor and different texture that roasted tomatoes offer in the filling.

To my tomatoes I'm gonna add salt, a generous amount, and pepper, olive oil.

I'm going to toss them.

This is harder than it looks.

See hahaha.

Next I'm going to spread them out on a sheet tray that I've lined with parchment paper.

Very important, this is a battle I fight all the time here at the restaurant, when you wanna roast a vegetable make sure that it's in a single layer on the sheet pan.

My line cooks are always really trying to pile things up on the sheet pan.

What you get is a cooked vegetable but it will actually steam.

I'm going to put them in a 350 to 400 degree oven for about 15 minutes.

Why those tomatoes are roasting we're going to start building the rest of our filling.

For this tomato pie we have these little yellow jellybean cherry tomatoes.

I'm going to add one of the main building blocks that we use here at Chef and The Farmer.

These are our four hour caramelized onions.

We begin cooking them in butter and water until they cook down to these really beautiful hued sweet intensely flavored caramelized onions.

I'm gonna add a nice spoonful to this.

Next we're gonna add one of my favorite friends to tomatoes which is basil.

We're gonna put whole beautiful basil leaves inside the feeling so when you cut into it you see these roasted red tomatoes, these fresh yellow cherry tomatoes, and whole basil leaves.

Now I'm going to check on my tomatoes.

You can see that all of the liquid has evaporated out so now what you're left with... oohhh that's hot... almost like a sun dried tomato but juicier.

I'm gonna pick up the corners and try to use that to shovel it in.

I'm gonna season all of this with salt and pepper.

I'm also going to add just a little bit of olive oil to kind of help everything come together when it starts to warm in the oven.

I think we're ready to fill this shell.

I'm going to save these beans because I'm thrifty like that.

Now we're just gonna spoon this in here.

[Music plays] Now we're gonna make the topping.

I'm gonna start with of course, mayonnaise.

And I'm gonna add a good amount of fontina cheese to that.

Then we're gonna add a bunch of shredded parmesan cheese.

And the combination of these two cheeses will allow this topping to really melt out but stay really creamy.

I'm just gonna start spooning this on top.

Not too much because we don't wanna overwhelm this rich sweet tomato flavor but you do want this to melt and kind of cover the whole top of this pie.

Now I'm going to put this in a 400 degree oven for about 20 minutes.

Oh yeah!

It's bubbling and brown and beautiful.

If this had cooled to room temperature the filling and the topping would have firmed up and would have made a really easy beautiful slice but I'm not in the business of waiting and I love it warm.

our slice of pie is gonna look like this.

[Music plays] My dad, along with just about everybody else in eastern North Carolina used to be a tobacco farmer so with all these people coming from different parts of the country here to Kinston, I wanted to be tobacco flowers or tobacco tops on every table so that they would understand what a big part of our culture it is.

My dad is always really quick to help and save the day so when I asked him to go out and cut the tobacco flowers he was totally game.

[Music plays] This is a big day.

It's a benchmark for the restaurant, for the staff, for Vivian and me.

We really look up to these guys.

We've only been open a little over a month.

It's a nerve-racking day.

It's exciting but it's kind of like getting married.

You look nice Jason.

Thank you Chef.

I kicked it up for ya'll today.

-Very nice.

-Big event today.

You'll fit right in with these folks.

I think that looks good.

I'm just ready for it to start so it will be over sooner haha.

This is going to be a very intense two hours.

Just making sure everything happens on time as it should.

[Music plays] I still haven't gotten one tray of sausage biscuits.

Awesome.

You can make a meal just on those.

So good.

We're getting ready to start the watermelon.

You do feta.

I'll dress.

That's delicious.

It's a wonder that heat is just enough to brighten up the sweetness of the watermelon so it's terrific.

Real nice.

Fried okra, ranch ice cream.

Alright can I get you another bowl so y'all are working on the same bowl people?

It is a refreshing way to have fried okra.

I've had worse things.

So once y'all are done with that we can start setting up for our tomato sandwich and our bean salad okay?

This is not gonna be the easiest thing I've ever done.

No Alright Adam let's start doing corn.

Behind you.

I was watching them make this sandwich.

It was a circular loaf.

They assembled the sandwich as a monster sandwich and then cut it into portions.

Yeah.

Oh yeah, that's great.

Okay so this should complete table 70 right here.

Tomato sandwich was just wonderful.

I've never had roasted corn mayonnaise but I really liked having it.

The tomatoes were amazing.

The smoked corn aioli was brilliant.

The bread was the perfect texture for the whole thing and more than that it was so savory.

Because of all those elements together, you know it's a tomato sandwich and that can be a very common place but I thought that this was actually quite extraordinary.

Thank you all for coming to eastern North Carolina.

Ever since we opened we have been trying to get people like you to come eat here.

You're all here in one day.

[Laughter] If you that you were coming to this region to study barbecue and that's a hard thing to measure up to so I decided to just take meat out of the equation entirely, high lighting all of the beautiful produce that the farmers we work with here grow.

[Applause] Vivian cooked for us last year and she made some collard green tamales that were gorgeous using collards in the same way that you would use grape leaves.

The idea that now she is taking vegetables and reinterpreting them and reframing them is beautiful, especially the okra with the ranch ice cream.

They're trying to reconvince a market that has been saturated with commodity food for years that they need to rethink things.

Wow.

That mission is bold and admirable but it's also extremely tough to do.

It's a big hill to climb.

People are going to say nice things to you all day because you have cameras.

[Music plays] Are these gonna be as good as the ones at the restaurant?

Did you cut any expertise out?

Are these gonna be as good?

This is the way we grew up eating them.

Even afer all this research on the ultimate tomato sandwich I still have this soft spot in my heart for sliced tomatoes, salt and pepper, Duke's mayonnaise and white bread.

That's what I grew up eating and there's really nothing like it.

It tastes good.

I can make you another one.

This is my only expectation.

Thank you mama.

Just like it was years ago.

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