John Batchelor has been writing about food, wine, travel, and history for over 30 years. He writes the fine dining restaurant review column for the Greensboro News and Record and formerly for the Winston-Salem Journal. He was a teacher in Guilford County and an administrator in several North Carolina school systems, including superintendent of two districts in the eastern part of the state. Both districts where he was superintendent were rated among the lowest 12 in the state on academic achievement when he went there; when he retired, every school in the district was rated “Exemplary.” He retired the first time in 1999, then working as a leadership and school improvement consultant with the Success For All Foundation and the Center for Data Driven Reform in Education at Johns Hopkins University, both in Baltimore. He retired again in 2009 and intends to stick with it this time, concentrating on writing.