About Carol

Carol Puckett has spent the last three decades working and playing in the food industry. In 1981 she founded The Everyday Gourmet, a cooking school and gourmet retail store in Jackson, Mississippi. The Everyday Gourmet was one of the first gourmet stores of its kind featuring professional cooking tools and a cutting edge cooking school. The store became widely known for hosting classes by nationally and internationally known chefs. Aspiring cooks traveled from all over the Deep South to participate in classes with noted chefs such as Jacques Pepin, Giuliano Bugiali or the young Emeril Lagasse who had just began to ply his trade in New Orleans.

Carol has worked in a variety of capacities with Viking Range Corporation in Greenwood, Mississippi and currently serves as Director of Special Projects. As president of the Viking Hospitality Group, she worked to develop the award winning Alluvian Hotel, Alluvian Spa, Viking Cooking School and Giardina’s Restaurant. The Alluvian has been honored by Conde Nast Traveler magazine as one of the Top 100 Hotels in the U.S. and is in its third year on the prestigious Conde Nast Gold List of the world’s best hotels.

Her love of food, wine and travel have taken her around the world to study the great cuisines. Heading up Viking’s partnership with the Culinary Institute of America’s Worlds of Flavor travel program, Carol immersed herself in the culinary cultures of Mexico, Italy, Spain, France, India, Thailand and Vietnam. Her favorite culinary expeditions, however, are on the back roads of her native Deep South to experience the distinct culinary heritage of her own backyard. Carol is an avid member of the Southern Foodways Alliance which celebrates and documents the diverse food culture of the American South. With her sister Helen DeFrance, she has written two cookbooks, At Home Café and At Home Café:Gatherings for Friends and Family.

When not cooking, eating, writing or talking about food, she can be found cycling, hiking, fishing, and canoeing. She divides her time between Mississippi and Black Mountain, North Carolina where her loftiest ambitions are writing, watching the stars, the mountains and listening to rock and roll.