Workshop Instructors

Chef DeAlejandro opened OliBea in the Old City in 2014 after having opened and co-owning the Crown and Goose. OliBea and Jeffrey quickly garnered impressive mentions in local and national press that addressed the booming Knoxville Food scene. In 2018, USA Today selected OliBea as one of the best biscuits in America. Throughout his culinary career, the chef has adhered to responsibly sourcing ingredients, mostly from local and regional farmers. Chef DeAlejandro brings in whole animals and has honed his butchery skills throughout the years including stints at their professional artisan butchery programs. This love of utilizing whole animal cooking lead the chef to begin his planning for the butcher shop and that hard work and planning has lead to HenHoc Deli & Butcher. Chef DeAlejandro is a resident of the Old City along with his wife Krissy and three children.

Meredith Leigh is a farmer, butcher, cook and author of The Ethical Meat Handbook: Complete Home Butchery, Charcuterie, and Cooking for the Conscious Omnivore and Pure Charcuterie: The Craft & Poetry of Curing Meat at Home. She lives in Asheville, North Carolina.

Chef Christian Morrish is the Culinary Operations Director and Executive Chef at Century Harvest Farms Foundation, located in Greenback TN. Christian has had a rewarding 15 plus year run in the Culinary/ Restaurant & Hospitality Industry. Very early on in his career, Chef Christian discovered he had a passion for butchery as well as preparing charcuterie. Chef Christian attended culinary school in San Francisco, CA at the California Culinary Academy and spent most of his career on the west coast as well as the Virgin Islands. Chef Christian’s cooking philosophy is “Beauty through simplicity”, and enjoys preparing his food in a “rustic/ country” fashion. Chef Christian is also a proud United States Army veteran.

Chef Jon Newman began working in restaurants in high school at the age of 15. After graduating Grand Rapids Culinary School, Newman moved to Charleston where he worked with some of the finest chefs in the Southeast. Newman gained extensive butchery and charcuterie training as well as learning the ins and outs of heritage breed hogs and the dangers of factory farming. After 8 years in Charleston, Newman and his wife Rumalda moved to Knoxville and began working to take Knoxville’s butchery and deli scene to the next level.