Listen to the podcast of this discussion.

And read the follow-up stories in the Sacramento Business Journal about the future projects that Andrea Lepore and the Kavookjians talked about at this event.

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California is the food and vegetable basket of the United States. Sacramento now officially calls itself the Farm-to-Fork Capital. So it's a good time to find out more about the people who farm the food and make it fork-ready.

We're starting a new series called "Food for Thought," in-depth conversations with groundbreakers who run farms, restaurants, breweries and bars around California and are shaking up the way we eat and drink.

Kicking it off is a discussion with Andrea Lepore of Hot Italian, and N'Gina and Ian Kavookjian of South. While one restaurant focuses on pizza and the other on down-home Southern cooking, the three owners share a common trait: they wanted to serve food they've since childhood that is rooted in their cultural heritage. They're also now branching out into different, non-restaurant areas (the Food Factory business incubator for Lepore, the Quinn vintage retail shop for the Kavookjians). And even though none of them are Jewish, they're going to be opening separate Jewish delis in Sacramento later this year.