Legacy Awards

2024 Legacy Awards & Experiences

The Fine Beverages Legacy Award: Wine, Beer, and Cider in the Texas Hill Country

Hosted by the Dames of the Austin Chapter

During this five-day experience the Legacy Award recipient will participate in hands-on learning, tastings, and networking with Texas’ award-winning wine, beer, cider producers, purveyors, and sellers.

You will spend two days with Pedernales Cellars, one of the pioneers in the rapidly growing Texas wine industry. Pedernales Cellars wines have received numerous medals including the Medallion d’Or from the Lyon International Wine Competition. The Awardee will spend time looking at areas of winemaking while working with owners Dame Julie and David Kuhlken (along with their winemaker and administrative staff) — including the processing of the 2024 vintage, wine hospitality, and the administration of a medium-sized winery. Dame Julie will host a curated tour of Texas Hill Country wineries including networking with other ATX & San Antonio Dames who are making inroads in the Texas Wine region.

The Awardee will have several half- to full-day opportunities to learn more about wine and Texas’ burgeoning craft beer and cider industry, including:

• Curated experience with Dame Karen Killough, owner of Vista Brewing, focused on making their award-winning Hive Mind Honey Ale. The awardee will learn how craft beer is made the Vista way with local sourcing and water conservation. The experience will include a brewery and apiary tour. Vista Brewing was named “2018 Best New Brewpub in Austin” by the Austin Beer Guide, “2019 Brewery of the Year” by CultureMap Austin, and 2021 Best of ATX by Austin Monthly. Vista’s brewing program has won a national Good Food Award for four years in a row.

• Curated sensory-led business development experience with Dame Amy Cartwright, Owner, Independence Brewing where the awardee will learn about brewing Independences’ award-winning beers from ingredients to consumer: including the malt selection, in depth hops review, and tasting in final form. Throughout, Dame Amy will share her experience regarding procurement, logistics, and production vs contracting. Since 2004, Independence has served their exceptional beers including the iconic Native Texan Pilsner.

• Curated tour and tasting at Texas Keeper Cider. Located on 19 acres of ranch land TKC was established in 2013 as a brewery creating an array of full-strength ciders from 100% fresh pressed apples. Co-owner/co-founder Dame Lindsey Peebles will be your guide.

• Curated tour of one of Texas’ top travel destinations — Dripping Springs, Texas — with Dame Jillonne Johnson, owner of Swig Consulting and Swig Cheese Haus. Dame Jill will introduce the awardee to her business with a wine a cheese tasting. Also, she will premier several Dame-owned businesses including wineries and restaurants.
• Curated in-store beer and wine tour at H-E-B, Texas’ largest grocery store chain. Kathryne Bosco, H-E-B Beer and Wine Manager, will give insight on the seller/buyer experience.

This experience will include a 1 or 2 night stay at Austin’s Hotel Magdalena  (part of the Bunkhouse Group). Stay is contingent on scheduling and itinerary of recipient and hosts.

This award is well-suited for someone who has at least two years of experience in beverage and hospitality and is interested in the Texas wine and beer region, the process and business of wine, beer, and cider as it relates to Texas terroir, sustainability, and conservation.

Please note most of these experiences take place in the Texas Hill Country. There will be significant car travel. This experience must be completed by September 13, 2024.

The Culinary Education Legacy Award: Teaching Your Way Through Dallas

Hosted by the Dames of the Dallas Chapter

Over the five days of your Legacy Award experience in Dallas/Ft. Worth, you will encounter the many ways one can share expertise with others as you explore the myriad possibilities available in vocational teaching in high school, community college, professional culinary school, and university settings, and avocational teaching in cooking schools, people’s homes, and restaurants.

The experience will be tailored to the awardee and can focus on a single area or provide the spectrum of opportunities related to teaching and education.  There will be a variety of full- and half-day experiences where the awardee can observe and/or participate in classes and immerse themselves in teaching and learning. During the half-day experiences, there will be a Dame-hosted “learn at lunch” on a topic related to sharing your passion with others, such as “teaching through media,” “entrepreneurship,” or “culinary coaching and special diets.” In addition, evenings will be spent exploring the DFW metroplex and dining with Dames.

Educational experiences may include visits to Dallas College Culinary & Hospitality with Dame Sheila Hyde, TCU Food Management & Dietetics with Dame Anne Vanbeber, Fort Worth High School with Dame Heather Kurima and Dame Katie Natale, and Central Market’s Recreational Cooking School with Dame Thresa Cox.

The Awardee will visit different Dame-owned businesses as well as other food venues that meet the awardee’s interests. In addition, the Dallas Chapter will incorporate visits to iconic landmarks and cultural attractions such as the Fort Worth Stockyards, Cowboys Stadium, and the Nasher Sculpture Center.

Each day will be hosted by a different Dame. In addition, we will schedule at least two opportunities for the awardee to meet Dallas Dames for networking and to connect socially.

Our network of Dallas Dames will provide transportation and hosting. The awardee will spend two or three nights on the west side of the metroplex in Fort Worth with the remainder of the time in Dallas. This will help minimize transportation time and ensure there is enough time for downtime built into the schedule.

This award is well-suited for someone who is either currently teaching and looking for professional development/mentorship or is interested in learning more about culinary education. 

This experience must be completed by September 20, 2024.

The Food Entrepreneurship Award: Tracing the New England Food System

Hosted by the Dames of the New England Chapter

Join this amazing, entrepreneurial group of New England Dames on a whirlwind trip through the New England Food System – a dazzling exploration of their unique food landscape. The Awardee will receive professional mentoring from these Dames whose work is impacting communities in the New England Food System.

The winner of the Culinary Entrepreneurship Award will learn about the importance of finding meaning and purpose in the mission and vision of their business and how that serves their community. They will hear the value of taking risks, accepting, and learning from failures, of believing in your own strengths and abilities no matter what external expectations may exist, the importance of networking, and servanthood leadership.

Their guide will be Dame Nancy Matheson-Burns, who will pick up the Awardee at Boston’s Logan Airport and transport them to the beautiful woman owned Briar Barn Inn, which will be the base of operations during the duration of their stay. Dinner will be at the Inn that first evening with Dame Nancy and some other New England Dames.

Over the next few days, the Awardee will have the opportunity to spend time with – and be mentored by – several entrepreneurial New England Dames, including:

• Dame Victoria Taylor, owner of the eponymous Victoria Gourmet, a spice company where the driving force is the pursuit of flavor. This certified woman-owned business has a predominantly female leadership team and an all-female board of directors.
• Dame Ana Ortins, owner and founder of Ana’s Portuguese Cooking School and author of Portuguese Homestyle Cooking and Authentic Portuguese Cooking.
• Dame Liz Mulholland, owner and founder of Valley View Farm, who combines her passion for historic preservation with the production of farmstead goat cheese at her family’s historic hilltop farmstead. The family is committed to innovative animal husbandry and new technologies to improve milk quality and animal health.
• Dame Nancy Matheson-Burns, fourth-generation owner of Dole & Bailey, a 154-year-old independent butcher shop and purveyor/Master Butcher providing superior meats and seafoods to businesses throughout New England.

There will be several lunches and dinners with members of the New England Dames included.

This experience would be a good fit for an entrepreneur or manager with at least 2 years in operation pertaining to farming, food manufacturing, distribution, purveying, culinary, and/or education.

This Legacy Award will take place in May or June 2024 to accommodate the birth of baby goats at Valley View Farms in the spring. There will be cuddling.

The Hospitality, Catering and Event Planning Legacy Award

Hosted by the Dames of the New Orleans Chapter

The Four Seasons Hotel New Orleans opened in 2021, bringing the global luxury brand to the city’s 34-story World Trade Center building at the bend in the Mississippi River. General Manager/NOLA Dame Mali Carow and the Four Seasons Hotel will host this five-day experience, which will take place at a mutually agreed upon period between June 1 and August 31, 2024.

A professional and team-oriented company, Four Seasons New Orleans regularly produces and executes events that incorporate creative F&B and detailed planning details. The awardee will spend most of her time working with the management team and associates within the sales and catering departments of the hotel, although as these departments touch everything in the hotel, she will also be exposed culinary, pastry, beverage, back of the house operations and purchasing. The idea is to give her first-hand experience into what it takes to command the New Orleans social, corporate and leisure market.  She will also gain insight into the Four Seasons brand, which pairs unparalleled luxury with hospitality grounded in genuine care, humanity and generosity.

The Awardee will experience the hotel from a guest’s perspective as well, staying four nights at the luxury property. Specific details of the experience are subject to change, based on timing. The New Orleans Les Dames chapter will host the Awardee at several Dames-owned restaurants and take her on a tour of the city, as time permits.

This award is suited for a woman with a minimum of three years’ experience in the realm of hotels, hospitality, catering and/or event planning. This experience must be completed by August 31, 2024.

The Food Policy and Advocacy Legacy Award: “Turning the Tables: Making Change through Policy and Advocacy”

Hosted by the Dames of the Washington, D.C. Chapter

Washington, D.C. is the nation’s center for policy making, legislation, think tanks, and change agents. The Dames of the Washington, D.C. chapter have created a unique opportunity for a candidate interested in exploring a career in food policy, justice, or advocacy. To make sustainable change in society, one must explore all avenues from legislative to grassroots advocacy. This week-long experience, mentored by the D.C. Dames, will expose the Awardee to major players who are shifting the landscape through culinary activism, creative programing, new laws, education, and sustainable practices.

The Awardee will leave with a broad introduction to the fields of policy and legislation related to food, as well as exposure to what it takes to shift systems and be an activist for change in the culinary eco-system. Our candidate will have an opportunity to tailor the experience to her place of residence and/or areas of interest. The program can be tailored to include meeting with policymakers from their home state and with leaders working on the policies the candidate is most interested in. (The candidates will be asked in the application to identify one of these two broad categories they are most interested in so the experience can be tailored as much as possible: Hunger, Nutrition, and Food Equity/Access; or Climate, Agriculture, Farming, and Food Sustainability.)

On the first full day, you will visit an organization in Baltimore that is related to one of the above areas of interest. There will pe a pre-dinner introduction to policy and advocacy in Washington, D.C., and then a welcome dinner with the local Dames with an intro to the sponsoring team and an itinerary overview.  The second and third days bring meetings with the Awardee’s legislator, a government agency, or an NGO related to their interest area, with dinners at local restaurants known for involvement in advocating change. The fourth day the Awardee will meet with local changemakers tailored to their interests, and then a casual dinner in Baltimore with local Dames. On the final full day, there will be a visit to an organization or museum with information related to the Awardee’s area of interest, such as the National Museum of African American History and Culture, the National Museum of the American Indian, or an embassy from a country with pace-setting programs in climate change management.

The candidate for this experience should have a minimum of two years’ experience as a culinary professional with demonstrated interested in policy or advocacy. This might include working with their local elected leadership in some capacity, including election campaigns; working on sustainability projects that exposed them to policy and regulation; working with leadership of a local food bank or food access agency; or working with an organization focused on climate justice. The work experience can be paid or as an active volunteer.

This experience has suggested dates: June 9-15; can be flexible.