"Life Is Rich and Full" stretches across the inside of chef Ashley Christensen's left bicep in swirling Victorian cursive. The ink is revealed as she reaches over the bar of her restaurant, Poole's Downtown Diner in Raleigh, North Carolina, to fill a guest's flute with Billecart-Salmon Brut Rosé.

Like much of Christensen's life, the tattoo is a collaboration, designed by Luke Miller Buchanan, a North Carolina artist-cum-bartender. Four years ago, he helped Christensen rebuild Poole's, a former pie shop in a then-desolate part of downtown. Buchanan still tends bar and writes the chalkboard menus at Poole's, including the one for tonight's dinner, which is (naturally) a collaboration, this one with Ed Lee, chef and owner of 610 Magnolia in Louisville.

<u>

The Pot-Stirrers</u>

Who's Cooked

Sean Brock McCrady's, Charleston, SC

John Currence City Grocery, Oxford, MS

Tyler Brown Capitol Grille &

Tandy Wilson* City House, Nashville, TN

John Fleer Canyon Kitchen, Cashiers, NC

Who's Cooking

Joseph Lenn The Barn at Blackberry Farm, Walland, TN, Feb. 5-6

Steven Satterfield Miller union, Atlanta, GA, May 20-21

* Stir the pot Nashville launches April 15-16.

stirthepotluck.com

Christensen has made a mission of sharing the richness and fullness of life, and tonight she and Lee have invited a cast of players in Raleigh's food and arts communities. The aim is to thank them for their support of Stir the Pot, the seasonal dinner series Christensen started two years ago to raise money for the documentary film initiative of the Southern Foodways Alliance. (The Sunday-night dinner is a five-course meal cooked with a guest chef—or two—at Poole's; the following evening is a $35 potluck held in Christensen's home.) The SFA, an institute of the University of Mississippi's Center for the Study of Southern Culture in Oxford, explores and celebrates the food of the South. Recent SFA films have profiled the septuagenarian South Carolina peach farmer Dori Sanders and the Big Apple Inn in Jackson, Mississippi, known for being a cradle of the civil rights movement as well as the purveyor of the nation's best pig-ear sandwiches.

A native of Kernersville, North Carolina, Christensen was raised by a truck-driving father who kept bees and tended an organic garden, and a mother who was, in Christensen's words, "one of those legendary, learned-at-her-grandmother's-elbow Southern home cooks." By the time she was tapped to cook at the SFA symposium in 2008, she'd been cooking in kitchens around Raleigh-Durham for 12 years. "I was so blown away by the number of genuine connections I made in Oxford," she says. "I wanted to bring that sense of community home." She hit upon the idea of inviting SFA-supporting chefs so they could learn from and inspire one another. Then she tapped friends to spread the word and sometimes more. Take Eliza Kraft Olander, a Raleigh philanthropist who, with Brian McHenry, donates all the wine for Stir the Pot events from her 23,000-bottle stash.

"Some women collect shoes. I collect wine, and I love sharing it with a charitable cause," Olander says as McHenry unloads cases of 1998 Penfolds Grange and 2000 Château Tertre Roteboeuf from a Bentley.

*[#image: /photos/57e15fae26bdf8de5bbcad1b]||||||

Top row, left to right: Frank Thompson, board member of CAM Raleigh, the city's contemporary art museum; Cheetie Kumar, Birds of Avalon guitarist, club owner, cook; Victor Lytvinenko, co-owner of Raleigh Denim Workshop; Poole's Downtown Diner chef Ashley Christensen.

Second row: Phoebe Lawless, owner of Scratch Baking; Paul Siler, Birds of Avalon guitairst, club owner; Dianne Lee, chef Lee's wife; chef Ed Lee, owner of 610 Magnolia.

Third row: Seth Hoffman, co-owner of Raleigh Wine Shop; Kaitlyn Goalen, national editor of Tasting Table; Charman Driver, Pilates studio owner; Will Alphin, co-owner of Foundation bar.

Fourth row: Sean Lilly Wilson, owner of Fullsteam brewery; Eliza Kraft Olander, philanthropist; Matthew Kelly, chef and co-owner of Vin Rouge; Sarah Lytvinenko, co-owner of Raleigh Denim Workshop.

Fifth row: Vivian Howard, chef and co-owner of

Chef & the Farmer; Ryan Fulkerson, co-owner of Raleigh Wine Shop; Kay Jordan, interior designer; Drew Brown, Farmhand Foods distribution manager.*

<u>Musical Co-Chairs</u>

For the second night of Stir the Pot, the guest chef's only responsibility is influencing the music for the potluck. For Ed Lee's first Stir the Pot, in August 2011, the Top Chef contestant chose karaoke (for which he apparently has quite a talent).

Ed Lee's Top 3 Karaoke Songs:

"Suspicious Minds," Elvis "Angel from Montgomery," John Prine "Kentucky Woman," Neil Diamond, (or for that matter, any Neil Diamond song)

Corks pop as the guests stream in. The chefs on hand are psyched for Lee's brash cooking, which mines the correspondences between Korean and Southern foods, redefining expectations along the way. Representing Durham are Phoebe Lawless, whose Scratch Baking has revitalized a deserted pedestrian street with scuppernong tarts and chocolate chess pies, and Matthew Kelly from the bistro Vin Rouge. From Kinston, North Carolina, is Vivian Howard of Chef & the Farmer and her sommelier husband, Benjamin Knight. Drew Brown from Farmhand Foods sells pasture-raised beef and pork to area restaurants and runs the Sausage Wagon food truck. And there's Sean Lilly Wilson, the upstart brewer at Fullsteam, who concocts "plow-to-pint" beers with Southern produce like sweet potatoes.

The guests take their seats and Lee strides into the dining room bearing platters of sausage-studded corn cakes, sorghum-glazed carrots, and spoon-tender brisket cooked in Kentucky-brewed soy sauce. Bowls of Christensen's Sea Island field peas hit the table in short order, as well as escarole with country ham.

Victor Lytvinenko stands to toast the chefs. He and his wife, Sarah, founded the Raleigh Denim Workshop, handcrafting jeans that are shipped to Barneys New York, Isetan in Tokyo, and Harrods. Taking his lead, Sarah instigates a round of picklebacks, i.e., shots of bourbon alternated with caraway-tinged pickle juice left over from the jars on the table.

"We've got this small community of people doing badass things, running successful businesses, and having a positive impact," says Victor. "We work hard and don't get a chance to hang out that much. So when we do, we do it up!"