Foodie
Wilmington

Lauris Burns has spent a lifetime at the edge of the map — which is exactly how she earned the nickname "The Edgeclinger." She has lived in Japan, the Philippines, Costa Rica, and Peru, and wandered deep through South America, Asia, and Europe, almost always with a fork in hand. From Lima's ceviche counters to Tokyo's back-alley izakayas to Manila's family kitchens, she learned that the fastest way to understand a place is to eat the way its people eat.

A graduate of the University of Southern Mississippi, Lauris spent years as a CPA before happily defecting — these days she calls herself a "recovering accountant." She's a writer, too, at work on several books about families, their secrets, and the way change reshapes them — stories where food is always the underlying theme. Ask her about a single dish and you'll get the recipe, the history, and the gossip that came with it.

Now rooted on the North Carolina coast, Lauris brings that globe-spanning palate home to Wilmington — a port city she's convinced is one of the South's most underrated food towns. Good taste runs in the family: her son, Rob Smith, curates Foodie Spokane out in Washington. Foodie Wilmington is her love letter to the Cape Fear coast, one honest plate at a time.