Asheville chef to talk about thoughtful cooking at Bookmarks

Chef William S. Dissen will bring his thoughtful approach to food and cooking to Bookmarks Festival of Books during a talk at 11:30 a.m.

Sept. 28. Dissen is the executive chef and owner of The Market Place restaurant in Asheville as well as three Billy D’ Fried Chicken places – one at N.

C. Carolina Zoo in Asheboro, one at Elon University in Elon and one at Wake Forest University in Winston-Salem. Until last year, he also owned Haymaker Restaurant in Charlotte.

This spring, he also became a cookbook author with the publication of “Thoughtful Cooking: Recipes Rooted in the New South” (Countryman Press, $35). Dissen is a native of West Virginia, where he grew up spending lots of time at his grandparents’ farm. “I had a very Appalachian upbringing, playing in the woods,” he said in a recent telephone interview.

“Growing up, spending a lot of time outside, you learn the value of nature.” People are also reading..

. That upbringing has informed Dissen’s cooking. He has become an advocate for farm-to-table seasonal cooking, and for sustainable growing practices.

He serves as a culinary diplomat in the American Chefs Corps of the U.S. State Department, educate organizations around the world about food sustainability.

He also is a seafood watch ambassador for The Monterey Bay Aquarium in California, which advocates for seafood sustainability. He has gone to Capitol Hill to speak to Congress about food policy, including the Farm Bill and the Childhood Nutrition Reaut.