Our cook-off finalists and guests will get a special treat this year. Celebrated Chef Jacques Pepin will be on hand to watch their performance, give a few tips and even put on a demonstration of his own. It is sure to be a once-in-a-lifetime experience.

Jacques Pépin, celebrated host of award-winning cooking shows on national public television, master chef, food columnist, cooking teacher, and author of nineteen cookbooks, was born in Bourg-en-Bresse, near Lyon. His first exposure to cooking was as a child in his parents' restaurant, Le Pelican. At age thirteen, he began his formal apprenticeship at the distinguished Grand Hotel de L'Europe in his hometown. He subsequently worked in Paris, training under Lucien Diat at the Plaza Athénée. From 1956 to 1958, Mr. Pépin was the personal chef to three French heads of state, including Charles de Gaulle.

Moving to the United States in 1959, Chef Pépin worked first at New York's historic Le Pavilion restaurant, then served for ten years as director of research and new development for the Howard Johnson Company, a position that enabled him to learn about mass production, marketing, food chemistry, and American food tastes. He studied at Columbia University during this period, ultimately earning an M.A. degree in 18th-century French literature in 1972. Deciding then to devote much of his time to writing, he authored two groundbreaking step-by-step books on French culinary technique, La Téchnique (1976) and La Méthode (1979). These works, and others that followed, earned him a place in the James Beard Foundation's Cookbook Hall of Fame in 1996, an honor bestowed each year on one author whose contributions to the literature of food have had a substantial and enduring impact on the American kitchen.