Andy Husbands is an award-winning pitmaster who began developing his own style of cooking upon opening Boston's Tremont 647 in 1996 and later, Sister Sorel. His latest venture, The Smoke Shop, pays homage to his extensive background in the competitive barbecue circuit. His honest, approachable fare makes Smoke Shop Boston Magazine's "Best Barbecue Restaurant," and the restaurant has been praised in The Boston Globe, Wine Spectator, Star Chefs, and more. After three decades in the restaurant industry, Husbands serves as one of Boston's most celebrated culinary leaders and foremost authority on regional Barbecue. He competed on FOX Television Network's fiery Hell's Kitchen and is internationally-recognized for his BBQ team, IQUE BBQ, which became the first New England team to win the World Champions of BBQ title in 2009 at the Jack Daniels World Championship in Tennessee. Husbands is an active board member of the Massachusetts Restaurant Association, which named him the 2014 Chef of the Year and a Rodman Celebration Restaurant Chair. He has also co-authored several cookbooks, including Pitmaster, Wicked Good BBQ, Wicked Good Burgers, Grill to Perfection,and The Fearless Chef.

Chris Hart, winner of the Jack Daniel Invitational World Championship in 2009, has dominated the competition BBQ circuit for the past 10 years with his team, IQUE. The team was the first group of Northerners in barbecue history to win a World Championship. Chris spends his days developing software, but his passion for cooking barbecue has him following the competition BBQ trail on weekends, pitting his talents against the best pitmasters in the U.S. Chris has cooked multiple barbecue tasting dinners at the James Beard House in NYC. He has appeared on the TV show BBQ Pitmasters, and is a Food Network Chopped Champion. He is coauthor of Pitmaster, Wicked Good Barbecue, Wicked Good Burgers, and Grill to Perfection.

Andrea Pyenson has been writing about food for more than a decade and enjoying it for a lot longer than that. Her writing about food and travel has appeared in The Boston Globe, edible Boston, edible Cape Cod, msn.com, oneforthetable.com, The Washington Post, and Fine Cooking, among others. Pyenson was associate editor of The Boston Globe Illustrated New England Seafood Cookbook and assistant editor of 52 Weeks Cheap Eats: Dining Deals in Greater Boston.

Multi-award-winning author, journalist, cooking teacher, and TV host, Steven Raichlen is the man who reinvented barbecue. His best-selling Barbecue Bible cookbook series and The Primal Grill and Barbecue University(tm) TV shows on PBS have helped people all over the world ascend the ladder of grilling enlightenment.

Ken Goodman is a freelance photographer based in New York City. He specializes in food and chef photography, concerts, events, portraits and cookbooks. His work has appeared in Rolling Stone magazine and Art Culinaire, and he has photographed Mario Batali, Jimmy Fallon, Jon Stewart, Michael Stipe, The Edge, Sean "Puffy" Combs, Mariska Hargitay, Stanley Tucci, Jon Bon Jovi, and Anthony Bourdain (among others). Prior to his photography career, he spent 20 years in the restaurant industry as a classically trained chef, culinary educator, and restaurant consultant.