Sam Fore is a Sri Lankan-American chef and recipe developer based in Lexington, Kentucky. Her pop up, Tuk Tuk Sri Lankan Bites, crisscrosses the country to bring her Sri Lanka meets the South dishes to diners far and wide. She started the pop up in 2016, after traditional Sri Lankan brunches in her home outgrew her dining room. Fore’s cooking is a reflection of her Sri Lankan upbringing in the American South; her dishes include her spin on Southern classics as well as new riffs on her family's time-tested recipes. Her recipes can be found in multiple national publications and across the web — her take on tomato pie graced the cover of Food & Wine in 2019. She was named one of Plate Magazine’s Chefs to Watch (2018), was one of Southern Living’s inaugural Cooks of the Year (2020) and was named one of Taste of the South’s Taste50 (2022). In 2021 she joined the cast of Christopher Kimball’s Milk Street, which airs nationally on PBS stations. She has cooked for the nation’s largest and most prestigious events, including the Kentucky Derby, Pebble Beach Food and Wine, Charleston Wine and Food Festival, Worlds of Flavor with the Culinary Institute of America and the annual Southern Smoke Foundation festival. She also cooked the opening party for the Food & Wine Classic in Aspen in 2022. In 2023 she became the first finalist of Sri Lankan descent, and the first with no operational restaurant, for Best Chef: Southeast for the James Beard Foundation Awards. The Snack Shop opened in late 2023, and her culinary vision continues to leave an imprint on the Bluegrass. Visit TukTukLex.com for more info.