Vivian Howard

Vivian Howard is an American chef, restaurateur, author, and television host. She is best known for hosting the PBS television series A Chef's Life from 2013 to 2018, where she explored the ingredients and cooking traditions of eastern North Carolina. Howard co-owned the Chef & the Farmer restaurant in Kinston, North Carolina, with her then-husband and business partner, artist Ben Knight. In 2014, she became the first woman since Julia Child to win a Peabody Award for a cooking program. Howard has authored two cookbooks: Deep Run Roots in 2017 and This Will Make It Taste Good: A New Path to Simple Cooking in 2020. Her opinion piece for the New York Times in 2023 highlighted the issues with the current restaurant business model and announced plans to reopen The Chef and the Farmer in late 2023 in a re-envisioned format. Howard was born and raised in Deep Run, North Carolina.