Respect the Craft

Respect the Craft I was eighteen years old, driving the back roads between Highland and Cashiers, North Carolina, on assignment for BBDO — at the time the largest advertising agency in the world. My job was to scout locations for a Camel Filters photoshoot. Days were spent wandering those mountain ridges looking for the perfect frame, and nights I found my way to the kitchen door of the Frog and Owl Café. I wasn’t exactly invited, but I offered myself as free labor, and they let me stay. My honest motivation at the start was simple: free food. What I got instead was something I never expected — an education. They put me to work folding and buttering puff pastry, prepping vegetables, washing dishes. Occasionally, I made butterballs, rolling small squares of ice-cold butter between wooden paddles until they were perfect little spheres. It was a team sport in that kitchen, and I was the newest and greenest member of the team. I had never really watched a chef plate a gourmet dish before. The timing between courses was precise. The attention to detail was something I didn’t have a word for yet — I just knew I’d never seen anything like it. The chef, Jerri Fifer — who happened to be my best friend’s girl — moved through that kitchen like she was conducting something. She was always dreaming up new ways to garnish plates, and she was generous enough to let me be part of it. Then I made a mistake. One evening I tossed out the offhand comment that maybe a microwave would speed things along. Jerri threw a skillet. Not at me, but close enough. She told me not to come back until I’d found some respect for the craft. I stood in the parking lot for a moment, a little stunned, and then I understood. She wasn’t being harsh, she was being honest. A real chef is an artist. The kitchen isn’t a factory — it’s a studio. And shortcuts don’t just slow things down, they hollow them out. I did go back. And I kept going back. That lesson has followed me for fifty years — through restaurants, through publishing, through every business I’ve ever touched.

The people who show up in these pages—from chefs to artists, doctors to guides, and musicians to makers—they are all practitioners of a craft. They chose mastery over convenience, precision over shortcuts, and pride over ease, and they deserve to be seen that way. That’s what Cityview has always tried to do. Not just cover the best of this region, but honor the people who make it worth living in. This May and June, we’re celebrating them again — and I hope you’ll read these pages with that same sense of respect that a young kid from East Tennessee finally learned on a cool Carolina night, standing at a kitchen door, looking for a free meal. That respect was earned.