James McNair
Head Judge
James McNair has been Head Judge for Build a Better Burger® since the recipe contest began in 1990, and now also serves as the Honorary Chairmen of BBB. He spends much of each summer immersed in burger recipes in order to help select finalists for the national Cook-Off. He also invites well-known chefs, cookbook authors, and other noted food authorities to join him in St. Helena each year to judge the Cook-Off. To celebrate the 15th anniversary of BBB in 2005, James wrote and produced Build a Better Burger, a book about the recipe contest, which includes all winning recipes. For the 20th anniversary, James co-authored, along with Chef Jeffrey Starr, Burger Parties, a collection of 16 themed parties, each starring a winning burger from BBB.
With over 40 other cookbook titles published and millions of copies sold, James has been hailed by food writers from coast to coast as the "king" and "master" of the single-subject cookbook. In the late 1980s, book reviewers credited him with single-handedly launching a new look in cookbook formats. His highly acclaimed kitchen library series published by Chronicle Books has been translated into several languages. Three of his books have received International Association of Culinary Professionals (IACP) Book Award nominations.
In addition to writing, James was the photo designer, food stylist, and graphic designer for many of his books, and he photographed twelve of his titles. He was honored as the recipient of IACP's first Award of Excellence in Food Photography "in recognition of exceptional achievement and a commitment to excellence."
Bon Appetit magazine chose James as a member of "Who's Who in American Barbecue." The San Francisco Chronicle included the author among the 100 reasons why the Bay Area is "America's culinary Mecca," and their Sunday magazine listed him among the "101 Reasons Why We Love the Bay Area."
James has taught at cooking schools throughout the United States and in Canada, and he has contributed articles to Bon Appetit, Cooking Light, The San Francisco Chronicle, The Los Angeles Times, and other publications. He has made numerous appearances on local and national television shows and radio programs from coast to coast, and has delivered presentations at the IACP's annual conference, The Symposium for Professional Food Writers, and Copia: The American Center for Wine, Food, and the Arts, as well as lectures on "picture-perfect cooking" to various organizations.
Prior to beginning his cookbook series for Chronicle Books, James co-owned Twin Peaks Grocery, one of San Francisco's first upscale gourmet emporiums, and Picnic Productions, a fanciful party planning and catering service. Before yielding to the lure of retailing and catering, he had written and edited both cooking and gardening books for Ortho Books and Sunset Books. For several years he was a designer and co-manager of a Fifth Avenue plant and flower shop in New York City, designed tabletop decorations for Tiffany and Company, and operated a "Celebrate Nature" boutique in Bloomingdale's.
A native of Louisiana, James learned to cook from his parents, grandmothers, and church ladies in his father's congregation. He began his professional life as an ordained Southern Baptist minister, serving as director of public relations for the Louisiana Baptist Convention. Now he ministers to the palates of American cooks and diners.
James lives in Napa Valley with his partner in life and work, Andrew Moore.
Pam Anderson
Pam Anderson is the monthly food columnist for USA Weekend and weekly blogger, along with her grown daughters, Maggy and Sharon, for threemanycooks.com. She is a contributing editor to Fine Cooking and Runner’s World magazines, as well as the “Celebrations” food columnist for Better Homes and Gardens.
She is the author of five books: New York Times bestseller and International Association of Culinary Professionals award nominee The Perfect Recipe for Losing Weight and Eating Great, the Julia Child Award winning The Perfect Recipe, and the James Beard Award nominees How To Cook Without a Book and Perfect Recipes for Having People Over, as well as CookSmart. Her sixth book, Perfect One-Dish Dinners, All You Need For Having People Over, will be released in September.
Pam is former Executive Editor of Cook’s Illustrated magazine. Her food articles have appeared in Food and Wine, Fine Cooking, Bon Appetit, Cooking Light, Real Simple, Better Homes and Gardens, Saveur, Ladies Home Journal, and The Washington Post. She has been featured in US News and World Report. She teaches cooking classes across the country and appears frequently on TV and radio.
She lives in Darien, Connecticut with her husband, David Anderson, Rector of St. Luke’s Episcopal Parish.
Lucy “LuLu” Anne Buffett
Lucy “LuLu” Anne Buffett is the owner of LuLu’s at Homeport Marina, a popular restaurant on the Intracostal Waterway in Gulf Shores, Alabama. The lively restaurant’s menu features Lucy’s version of Cheeseburger in Paradise, a nod to the song closely associated with her famous brother, musician Jimmy Buffett.
Lucy learned to make gumbo in her paternal grandmother’s Pascagoula, Mississippi kitchen. Her first taste of fine dining came from her maternal grandmother, the dietician at Gulf Park College, a former girls’ finishing school in Long Beach, Mississippi.
As a young adult, Lucy pursued careers that took her away from her Alabama Gulf Coast home to the coastlines of California and Florida, but she often missed the slow Southern lifestyle of her childhood home. She returned to Alabama in 1999 and opened LuLu´s Sunset Grill, a modest outdoor restaurant and bar on Weeks Bay Estuary near Mobile with a knack for serving up fun food and good entertainment. The restaurant was located on a stretch of the estuary that happened to be the same spot Lucy´s dad took her and her siblings fishing in her youth.
After five years of operating LuLu’s Sunset Grill, Lucy was forced to move the restaurant due to a change in user criteria of the leased space. It was a bittersweet move, but in true Buffett style, Lucy turned the event into a party and transported the entire restaurant 18 miles south by barge to Gulf Shores and renamed it LuLu’s at Homeport Marina. What was once considered a dive has grown into a destination experience for over 750,000 customers per year, adding up to more more than 1,000 gallons of gumbo and over 100,000 hamburgers each year!
Crazy Sista Cooking, Lucy’s first cookbook, is a collection of recipes and stories from LuLu’s. She’s also launched LuLu’s Fun Food, an eclectic array of bottled sauces, spices, and snacks.
Lucy lives in coastal Baldwin County, Alabama and has grown, married daughters. She enjoys riding horses, swimming, yoga, traveling, dogs, cats, and, of course, cooking for her family and friends.
Fran Carpentier
Fran Carpentier has spent most of her journalism career as a Senior Editor for Parade, the national Sunday newspaper magazine that is distributed into 35 million homes every week, where it reaches more than 70 million readers. In addition to overseeing much of the publication’s lifestyle coverage and working very closely with the late Sheila Lukins, the magazine’s long-time food editor and best-selling cookbook author, Fran also spearheaded the magazine’s annual “What America Eats” issue and the biennial national survey of the same name, helping to build both into important industry examinations of the nation’s cooking, dining, and food-shopping habits.
In February 2008, Fran moved to Parade.com, the online home of Parade where she oversees food, health, and lifestyle coverage and creates original content. She also wrote the food blog, “Eat My Words,” and appeared in cooking videos created for Parade by InYourKitchen.com.
Fran often appears on television and radio as a commentator on consumer and lifestyle trends. In her spare time, she is an editorial consultant and a public speaker with special interests in food, family and health.
Fran and her husband, Dr. Ira L. Salom, live, cook, and dine out in New York City with their 15-year-old son, Ben.
Daisy Martinez
Daisy Martinez is the host of Viva Daisy! on Food Network, the result of a chance meeting at an event with Rachael Ray, whose production company, Watch Entertainment, produces Daisy’s show. She was previously on PBS as the host of Daisy Cooks, where she introduced her favorite dishes from Puerto Rico, Central America, Spain, and other parts of the Spanish-speaking world.
Daisy attended the French Culinary Institute in New York, where she won first prize for her final project. Shortly after graduation, she began working with A La Carte Communications as a prep-kitchen chef on the Lidia's Italian-American Kitchen television series while also working as a private chef in New York City and as the owner of a small catering business called “The Passionate Palate”.
She is the author of Daisy: Morning, Noon, and Night and Daisy Cooks!: Latin Flavors That Will Rock Your World, which was an International Association of Culinary Professionals cookbook awards nominee and winner of the Best Latino Cuisine Cookbook in the World by the Gourmand World Cookbook Awards. She is also a regular columnist for Every Day with Rachael Ray and Selecciones magazines.
Prior to entering the food world, Daisy was an actress and model, appearing in projects ranging from print ads for Spanish shoe company Martinez Valero, to English and Spanish-language commercials for products such as Ford and AT&T, and movie roles, including Carlito's Way and Scent of a Woman.
A Brooklyn, New York native born to mainland Puerto Rican parents, Daisy learned to cook from her grandmother, Valentina, and her mother, Conchita. Intensely proud of her Puerto Rican heritage, Daisy is very active in the Latino community and with many philanthropic endeavors.
Daisy and her husband, Dr. Jerry Lombardo, and their daughter, Angela, reside in Brooklyn with frequent visits from their sons Erik, Marc, and David.
Steve McDonagh and Dan Smith
Steve McDonagh and Dan Smith, collectively known as The Hearty Boys, are co-owners of Hearty Boys catering company in Chicago and their newest restaurant venture, Hearty, which Time Out Chicago described as “Trailer park meets trailblazing”. They previously owned HB restaurant, named by Chicago Magazine as one of the 10 hottest restaurants in the city.
The duo won Food Network’s first reality show, The Search for the Next Food Network Star, in 2005 and went on to co-host multiple seasons of Party Line with the Hearty Boys and appeared on many other specials on the network. They’ve also appeared on Kathy Griffin’s My Life on the D List, Fine Living Network’s Your Reality Checked, Girls Night Out and Q on the Move. They have had numerous appearances on CBS’s The Early Show and were regular contributors to NBC’s In the Loop. Based on their television work, Steve and Dan launched HBTV, an interactive on-camera cooking class, along the liens of “cooking karaoke” and the only one of its type in the US.
The partners published their first cookbook, Talk with Your Mouth Full, in 2007. Their recipes and insider tips have been featured in Life, The New Yorker, The New York Times, Glamour, Real Simple, Woman’s Day, and a host of other national publications.
A vinophile and lover of all things cocktail related, Steve is the “front-of-the-house” face of The Hearty Boys ventures and handles the event planning and business end of the company. He came to the food business as countless others do, as an actor trying to make ends meet. Years of restaurant work and catering in some of Manhattan’s most well-known establishments and venues laid the groundwork for his success. He has appeared in numerous television commercials and radio spots, and has been a fixture on the Chicago stage for many years.
Dan is not classically trained as a chef, but culled his experience from years the kitchen of a large Italian family and in the trenches. During a ten-year stint as an actor and model in New York City, he began his culinary career with boutique caterer and author Francine Maroukian, selected as one of New York’s top five caterers by Town & Country magazine. As her lead chef, Dan created menus for New York’s glitterati before moving on to work with Sara Moulton in the Gourmet magazine kitchens and Jonathan Waxman at JAM’s. He relocated to the resort town of Bethel, Maine to open his own successful café.
A life-long fan of The Hardy Boys mystery books, Dan decided that he’d combine his love for food and his favorite literary collection and thus The Hearty Boys business was born out of an 8-by-8-foot apartment kitchen in Chicago in 1998.
Dan and Steve live with their son, Nate, in Chicago.
Jeffrey Starr
Jeffrey Starr is Culinary Director and Executive Chef for Trinchero Family Estates and Build a Better Burger. He was instrumental in the design and creation of the new Tuscan-style kitchen in the Trinchero Hospitality Center. The state-of-the-art professional kitchen produces meals for Trinchero events and is home to the innovative “Vine to Dine” food and wine trade education program. Jeff holds a Certified Specialist of Wine (CSW) credential from the Society of Wine Educators and travels extensively for Trinchero Family Estates on behalf of its extensive portfolio of fine wines.
He is co-author with James McNair of Burger Parties and contributed the wine-paring notes for the Build a Better Burger cookbook. He hosted the popular “Bay Gourmet” segment on the top-rated San Francisco Bay Area show Mornings on Two, and makes frequent radio, print, and television appearances, including NBC’s Today Show and a judge on Food Network Challenge.
Twice named “Chef of the Year” at the Napa Valley Mustard Festival, Jeff has also served as the culinary chair of the famed Auction Napa Valley, the world’s largest charity wine auction. He has been guest chef for the Aspen Food and Wine Classic kick-off reception for several years, and has twice been guest chef at the James Beard House in New York City.
Dallas was the scene of Jeff’s culinary sojourn, working at Dakota’s before becoming opening chef at Dallas’ exclusive Crescent Club, where he met Mark Miller, who invited Jeff to become the opening sous chef at Coyote Cafe in Santa Fe. Next stop was southern California as executive chef at the celebrity-owned Malibu Adobe, where Jeff established the restaurant’s signature southwestern cuisine, attracting some of Hollywood’s brightest stars. Jeff rediscovered his Northern California roots in Napa Valley when renowned chef Jonathan Waxman asked him to consult on a new restaurant. Following that project, Starr found himself much in demand as a private chef and eventually opened Starr Caterers in Napa Valley. From the outset, Starr Caterers worked extensively with Trinchero Family Estates, and in 1996, the Trinchero family invited him to become the winery’s full-time chef.
When not in the kitchen, Jeff enjoys golf and riding his motorcycle on the back roads of Napa Valley.