Jamie Deen is an entrepreneur, businessman, author, and son of American cooking and lifestyle icon Paula Deen. He recently shot his first solo pilot “Home for Dinner with Jamie Deen” for the Food Network.

Jamie has been an integral part of the now legendary small business The Bag Lady—the famous sandwich delivery service that launched Paula Deen’s success. Working with his mom and younger brother Bobby, Jamie delivered the “lunch-and-love-in-a-bag” that kick-started his mother’s professional cooking career in Savannah, Ga.

The Deen family took The Bag Lady concept: Great food, great value and a whole lot of love—and expanded it into one of America’s most successful restaurant launches; the 1989 opening of The Lady and Sons in Savannah. Jamie’s careful attention to the business side enabled his mom to craft recipes that helped garner The Lady and Sons national exposure.

Soon after, Jamie and Bobby began making regular appearances on their mom’s cooking shows on the Food Network, and later launched their own show on the network’s “Road Tasted.” “Road Tasted” followed The Deen Brothers as they explored America in search of more examples of love and warmth-infused cooking.

Jamie and his brother Bobby are also accomplished authors, and have published four books: The Deen Bros. Cookbook—Recipes from the Road (2007), Y’all Come Eat (2008), Take It Easy (2009) and Get Fired Up (2011). As well, they’ve expanded their efforts with a line of spices, bbq sauces and t-shirts, all sold at the Paula Deen Store and at PaulaDeen.com.

Today, Jamie lives with his wife Brooke and their two children in Savannah. Deen serves on the boards of the Bethesda Home for Boys and the Coastal America’s Second Harvest, and is a sought after speaker at small business conferences, schools and community outreach programs.

Stephan Pyles, a 5th generation Texan, was first introduced to the restaurant industry at any early age, bussing tables and chopping vegetables at his family’s Truck Stop Café in Big Spring, Texas.

Today, Pyles is a world-class chef, cookbook author, philanthropist, and educator. He has created 17 restaurants in five cities over the past 29 years, including Routh Street Café, Baby Routh, Star Canyon and his eponymous Stephan Pyles. Bon Appetite magazine has credited Pyles with “single-handedly changing the cooking scene in Texas” while The New York Times called him “an absolute genius in the kitchen.” Chef Pyles was named Esquire magazine’s Chef of the Year for 2006, and Texas Monthly named him “one of the 10 most influential Texans” of 2000. Stephan Pyles has won numerous awards for his cooking and is a highly successful cookbook author.

Pyles is a founding board member of Share Our Strength and is a life board member of the North Texas Food Bank. He also serves on the board of Goodwill Industries. In 1988, he founded The Hunger Link, Dallas’ perishable food program that acts as a conduit between restaurants and hotels and ministries and soup kitchens. For the last 12 years, Pyles has offered a $15,000 annual scholarship in his name to a rising star culinary student in Texas.

Susan Feniger’s passion for food has propelled her into a three-decade career as a successful chef, restaurateur, cookbook author, and media darling, with the Los Angeles Times recently saying, “She deserves an Emmy for energy.” She spends most days dividing her time between her first solo venture, Susan Feniger’s STREET, and the Border Grill restaurants in Santa Monica, Downtown LA, and Las Vegas at Mandalay Bay Resort & Casino, as well as the Border Grill Truck—all co-owned with Chef Mary Sue Milliken.

A veteran of nearly 400 episodes of Food Network’s “Too Hot Tamales” and “Tamales World Tour” series along with Milliken, Feniger has also appeared on season two of Bravo’s “Top Chef Masters,” “The Today Show,” “Chef vs. City,” and “The Best Thing I Ever Ate,” as well as in print for magazines such as Gourmet, Sunset, Bon Appétit and O, The Oprah Magazine.

Feniger has co-authored five cookbooks, as well as her most recent solo endeavor, set for release in July of 2012, Susan Feniger’s STREET: irresistibly crispy, creamy, crunchy, spicy, sticky, sweet recipes. Susan has been on the board of the Scleroderma Research Foundation for 17 years and the board of the L.A. Gay & Lesbian Center for three.

Chef Ford Fry’s passion for “Southern Farmstead Cooking” truly came to fruition with the launch of his first restaurant, JCT. Kitchen & Bar, in January of 2007. Fry’s menu at JCT. is reminiscent of traditional family favorites and features ingredients from regional fields and farms. Fry is a native of Houston and a graduate of the New England Culinary Institute. His extensive culinary background includes stints in executive and sous chef positions at The Ritz Carlton in Aspen, Houston and Naples, as well as Snowmass Lodge in Snowmass, Colo., and the Ojai Valley Inn and Spa in Ojai, Calif.

During his tenure as executive Sous chef of The Ritz Carlton Aspen, Condé Nast Traveler magazine named the resort “The Best Resort in the World,” and Gourmet magazine referred to the restaurant, which carried a Five Star-Five Diamond rating, as “The Number One Restaurant in Aspen.”

In addition to his roles at JCT., No. 246 and The Optimist, Fry is also the founder of one of Atlanta’s most popular food events, The JCT. Kitchen & Bar Attack of the Killer Tomato Festival. This annual event features some of the South’s best chefs and mixologists, who are paired with local farmers to create innovative tomato dishes. Proceeds from the event benefit Georgia Organics, an organization that is very important to Fry.

Chef Michael Kornick, founder and owner of mk, is a nationally recognized leader in the culinary arts. Kornick works with the freshest seasonal ingredients and stays true to classical cooking techniques. It is his belief that ingredients should speak for themselves.

Michael Kornick graduated in 1982 from the Culinary Institute of America and went on to work with some of the most influential chefs and restaurant operators in the United States. These include Barry Wine at New York’s legendary, The Quilted Giraffe; Gordon Sinclair, of Gordon Restaurant and with Richard Melman at Lettuce Entertain You Enterprises on various themed restaurants. Chef Kornick, at the age of 28, was one of the youngest Executive Chefs hired by the Four Seasons Hotel Company in 1991.

In 1998 Kornick, together with his wife Lisa, opened mk, the restaurant. Since opening, the restaurant has been acclaimed by the Chicago Tribune, Chicago Sun Times, and Chicago magazine, all recognizing mk with a three-star review.

Michael is very active in the community. He has raised awareness and money annually for Share our Strength, the Chicago Food Depository, Healthy Schools Campaign, Steppenwolf Theater, Perspectives Charter School, Sweet Water Foundation and many other worthy organizations. For the past eight years Chef Kornick has served as Chef Chair for Toque: An Evening With Chicago’s Culinary Masters. The event raises money for Children’s Oncology Services, Inc. and funds their Camp One Step at a Time, a camp for children with cancer.

Jennifer Biesty’s culinary career developed under the tutelage of Loretta Keller Chef/Owner of the late "Bizou" and current COCO500. Together they participated in benefit dinners at The James Beard House, The Master’s of Food & Wine and Taste of the Nation; strengthening Biesty’s bond with San Francisco’s food community.

Jennifer took time to travel on her own and explore the cultures of Italy, Spain and Paris for one year. Concluding her trip, she found herself in London working at the River Café, alongside talented chefs such as Ruth Rodgers, Rose Gray and Jamie Oliver. Jennifer returned to San Francisco to work with Chef Traci des Jardins at the San Francisco favorite Jardinière restaurant and after a year found herself back alongside Loretta Keller. Together they transformed Bizou into the acclaimed COCO500, where Biesty played an integral role in the redesign and held the position of Executive Chef. Under her lead, San Francisco Chronicle Food Critic Michael Bauer rewarded the restaurant with 3-stars, immediately following its debut.

At Scala’s Bistro, Biesty showcases her philosophy in modern Italian dishes that integrate a rustic approach with her use and preparation of local ingredients. “Each dish is reminiscent of traditional Italy,” says Biesty, “but is modernized by incorporating the freshest ingredients in an adventurous and sophisticated way.”