CHRIS COLEMAN

Chris Coleman grew up in a small town outside of Charlotte, North Carolina, where children played outdoors until the streetlights turned on each night. His mother was a pianist at their church, and his father worked for a nearby energy company. But each year when school let out, this son of the suburbs traveled to southern Mississippi for a summer on his grandparents’ farm.

“We called them Mawmaw and Pawpaw,” Chris recalls. “They had horses, raised cattle, had a little pecan orchard and big fig tree. And Mawmaw had these massive blueberry bushes that had gotten as tall as trees.”

It was on this farm in Purvis, Mississippi—a town of just over 2,000 inhabitants—that young Chris learned to love food. Days began at the breakfast table where the family gathered over a piping hot cast-iron skillet of Mawmaw's signature drop biscuits before she and Pawpaw headed off to work. The boys spent their time chasing cows, pelting each other with pecans, and enjoying