What started out as just a first job at age 16 quickly became a passion for Chef Austin Conklin, head chef at Inland Pacific Kitchen in Spokane’s historic Washington Cracker Co. Building. After harvesting nettles at Urban Eden Farm, Conklin returns to the kitchen to whip up an avant garde dessert.

For many immigrants, finding the flavors, ingredients and dishes they were raised on in their adopted home countries can be difficult. But the Inland Northwest offers Almaz Ainuu, owner of Spokane’s Queen of Sheba, a unique link to her native Ethiopia: teff.

Between Au Croissant and Fery's Catering and Take-Out, Fery Haghighi has been an icon of Spokane's local culinary landscape since arriving in the Inland Northwest after fleeing her native Iran in the late 1970's.

Born in Seoul, South Korea, Jeannie Choi grew up in a family of restaurateurs. Now she brings a lifetime of world travel experience and culinary techniques to her Airway Heights restaurant, D'Bali Asian Bistro, sharing an array of Southeast Asian flavors and specialties like curries, noodles and fried rice.