For nearly two decades, James Beard Award-winning chef and food advocate Andrea Reusing has been part of the Center for Environmental Farming Systems (CEFS) story. As an inaugural member of the CEFS Board of Advisors, Reusing helped champion CEFS’ work to strengthen connections between North Carolina farmers, food businesses and communities. Today, while she is no longer serving on the Board, her commitment to a stronger local food system continues, and she’ll bring that perspective to CEFS and Farm to Fork NC’s upcoming The Grounded Table webinar.
Reusing is the chef and owner of Lantern in Chapel Hill, where she has spent more than two decades combining North Carolina ingredients with Asian flavors and building strong relationships with local farmers and producers. She received the 2011 James Beard Award for Best Chef: Southeast and is the author of Cooking in the Moment: A Year of Seasonal Recipes, which was named one of the New York Times’ most notable cookbooks of the year.
Her influence extends well beyond the restaurant kitchen. Reusing has long advocated for farmers, farmworkers and food policy change, including through her TEDx Talk at the University of North Carolina, where she called on the food world to make a place at the table for farmworkers. She also chaired the Chapel Hill slow food movement and has been an advocate for better wages and working conditions for restaurant workers.
During the COVID-19 pandemic, Reusing transformed Lantern’s kitchen into a space for teaching and connection, developing online cooking programs that reached families and children at home. Her work demonstrates how restaurants and chefs can serve as important links between farms and consumers, and how everyday food choices can contribute to a more resilient food system.
That philosophy remains at the heart of her work today.
On Monday, September 21, from 12–1 p.m., Reusing will join CEFS and Farm to Fork NC for The Grounded Table – Cooking with Purpose: Local Food, Pickling, and Building Better Food Systems, an interactive conversation about the connections between our kitchens, local farms and the broader food system.
During the webinar, Reusing will demonstrate how to pickle and preserve local vegetables using seasonal North Carolina produce, sharing simple preservation techniques that can extend the life of groceries and reduce household food waste. She’ll also discuss how seasonal shopping, basic kitchen skills and relationships with local farmers can make eating locally more accessible, and why our own kitchens can be a starting point for meaningful food system change.
A live Q&A will follow the demonstration.
Register here. All registrants will receive a recording of the webinar by email following the event.
From her early involvement with CEFS to her continued work connecting farmers, food professionals and consumers, Reusing has spent her career demonstrating what is possible when we build stronger relationships around food. We’re excited to welcome her back to the CEFS community for a conversation that brings that work right into our kitchens.