Anne Quessenberry was Jim's mother and the woman who first put the craft of cooking in his hands. When Jim was involved in a serious car accident that required a year-long recovery, Anne was his constant caretaker — and it was during that bedbound year that she taught him the full art of Southern cooking.
The patience and technique Jim developed in Anne's kitchen became the foundation of everything he would later do on the competition circuit. Every pitmaster has a first teacher. For Jim, it was his mother.