Having grown up in the San Francisco Bay Area and living in San Francisco I have tasted every culinary experience there is to taste in S.F. from every corner of the city while I lived there for five years. And to my joy Anne Kearney has produced heaven in the land of corn and beans. I must add that Betty K. Hoover owner of "Coldwater Cafe" in Tipp City, Ohio; Founder Iko Wright, her protege's Kim Korkan and Mary Anne Smith of "Winds Cafe and Bakery" in Yellow Springs, Ohio and other women of Ohio are showing this great farming state that the black gold of Ohio is not just for producing beans and corn anymore but, producing some of the best food I have tasted bar none. Tim Haley
Anne Kearney
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Credit: Bruce Crippen
This chef is my culinary hero. Not just because I loved Peristyle, the French-Creole restaurant in New Orleans that she used to own, until 2004. And not just because of her awards from the James Beard Foundation and other organizations. She's my hero because she returned to her roots in Ohio, her native state. When she left New Orleans and came back to her family's farm in the small town of Lebanon she started raising organic produce, taught at the Midwest Culinary Institute in Cincinnati, and got diners interested in Ohio's local and artisanal food products. In 2007 she opened Rue Dumaine, a bistro in Washington Township, a suburb of Dayton. Her food feels more classically French now, and I love everything on the menu: the pan-seared sea scallops with roasted fingerling potatoes; the crisp herbes de Provence frogs' legs; the cabernet-braised beef short ribs with rémoulade slaw. It's a hidden gem where Anne continues to make magic. —Greg Holtkamp, Braintree, Massachusetts
