2013 CONTEST JUDGES
(Semifinals and Finals) Austin Brown is the 2012 winner of the “Makes-Me-Wanna SHOUT!” Chocolate Layer Cake Challenge presented with Eatonville Restaurant. His winning Chocolate Trio Cake. Austin lives in Washington, DC and works as a green energy analyst. After the baking challenge Austin donated part of his prize money to Martha’s Table and shared samples of the cake at Whole Foods Foggy Bottom. The Chocolate Trio Cake has been a best-seller on the Eatonville Restaurant menu.
(Semifinals) Rebecca Layton Gunter is the Founder and President of operation: eatery, a culinary think tank. Rebecca is a professional bartender with twenty years of experience in the restaurant industry. She is a proponent of organically farmed and sustainable foods sourced from local purveyors and seasonally-inspired, ingredient-driven menus. In addition, from 2004-2010, she was the owner/operator of a boutique catering & special events firm, CakeLady Catering, in which she honed her business sense and management skills. In addition to her food and foodservice credibility, Rebecca is a professional business solutions provider, supplying organizations and individuals with turn-key marketing and communications products since 2000. She is a natural manager and strategist, possessing the unique ability to identify strengths and weaknesses and to pair them with opportunities to take any project from conception to completion.
Melissa Harris (Semifinals) is Founder and President of the Foodshed organization and Creative Director (as well as Publisher) of Foodshed Magazine. Melissa grew up in New York City and has been in the publishing industry for over fifteen years. After publishing Flavor Magazine for more than five years and championing local food and wine related businesses, she realized there was so much more work to be done to make the local food movement sustainable and viable. Up sprouted the concept for the Foodshed Organization and Foodshed Magazine.
(Finals) JC Hayward stands out as a gem in the shining crown of broadcast journalism in Washington, DC. As the DC market’s first female anchor, she celebrates 40 years as an anchor at WUSA9 and was recently inducted into the National Association of Broadcast Journalists’ Hall of Fame. Over JC’s expansive career she has consistently been rated one of the top news people in DC broadcast journalism and she was once voted Washingtonian Magazine‘s “Washingtonian of The Year.” In April 2006, JC was promoted to Vice President for Media Outreach which allows her to increase WUSA9′s visibility by acting as a link to the metropolitan Washington community.
Mary Kong-DeVito (finals) founded Girl Meets Food, Washington, DC’s irreverent guide to food and drink. Girl Meets Food highlights “the coolest places to eat, the most talked-about drinks, and curate dining guides for every situation” (awkward or otherwise). Mary grew up in Manhattan and Queens, New York. As a hospitality and beauty industry veteran, Mary’s worked with celebrities such as Barbra Streisand, Michael Stipe, Vanessa Williams, Jane Krakowski, LeVar Burton, Sonia Sotomayor, Alexandra Wentworth, Jennifer Carpenter, John Hurt, George Hamilton, among others. As a freelance writer, she’s written for DC Modern Luxury, Eater, Washington Post Express, Scoutmob, Washington City Paper.
(Semifinals and Finals) Brenda Rhodes Miller is the author of The Church Ladies’ Divine Desserts and Sweet Recollections, The Laying on of Hands, and The Church Ladies’ Celestial Suppers and Sensible Advice. Brenda Rhodes Miller is also Executive Director of the DC Campaign to Prevent Teen Pregnancy.
(Finals) Joan Nathan, a James Beard Award winner, author of 10 cookbooks including her most recent Quiches, Kugels and Couscous: My Search for Jewish Cooking in France as well as host of the PBS television series “Jewish Cooking in America with Joan Nathan.”
Demetri Recachinas (Semifinals) is Assistant Director for Martha’s Table’s Food Programs. A D.C. native who grew up in Maryland, Demetri’s worked in restaurants since high school. After completing training in the Marine Corps, Demetri enrolled in culinary school in Seattle, Washington. He’s also traveled the world and taken cooking classes in Singapore, Thailand, Vietnam, and China. Before heading Martha’s Table’s food programs, Demetri was sous chef at Buck’s Fishing and Camping under then-head-chef Carole Greenwood. In addition to supervising volunteers and full-time cooks, he’s reached out to corporate donors and local farmer’s markets to bring the fresh foods and ingredients served from Martha’s Table’s kitchen.
(Semifinals/Finals) Anas “Andy” Shallal is the of owner Eatonville Restaurant and Busboys and Poets. Eatonville Restaurant was opened in 2009 and is inspired by the life and writings of Zora Neale Hurston, a prominent writer, folklorist and anthropologist of the Harlem Renaissance. Eatonville is named for Hurston’s Florida hometown and the country’s first, post-Civil War, African American incorporated town and the focal point in her most famous work, Their Eye Were Watching God which celebrates its 75th anniversary of publication this year.