Raised at the table of a meat-and-three, Jennifer Justus had her Southern food education on plates of fried chicken and turnip greens. But she received her formal training at Boston University where she created her own food writing curriculum with courses in both Journalism and Gastronomy, a cultural study of food founded by Julia Child and Jacques Pepin.

Jennifer is the author of The Food Lovers’ Guide to Nashville (Globe Pequot Press, November 2012), and she worked as a food culture reporter at The Tennessean for the past six years. Her work has been included in editions 5 and 6 of Cornbread Nation: The Best of Southern Food Writing, Alimentum literary food journal, Nashville Lifestyles magazine, Imbibe, Southern Living, The Boston Globe, and the Boston Herald, among others.

Prior to journalism, Jennifer worked in qualitative research studying the emotional connections we make with food. She spent hours in the kitchens of home cooks looking for the reasons behind the comfort in a pot of chili, and she conducted deprivation studies with teenagers across the country to understand the craving for a slice of pepperoni pie. It¹s through this work that Jennifer gained experience tapping into food¹s deeper roles in our lives as art, travel, sociology, agriculture, and health, but also as a simple everyday act that brings us together at the table.