Editors:
Jennie is a wife, mom, and frequenter of Target sales. She's lived in Texas far longer than she ever feared she would. She's no foodie, that's for sure, but there's almost nothing she loves more than a good (veggie) burger, good company, and a good glass of sparkling wine. She's married to Mike, a redheaded stock broker who makes the best mashed potatoes and peanut-butter-and-jelly sandwiches she's ever tasted and together they have a three-year-old boy, Kyle, who's palate preferences are limited to bagels and larger bagels. Jennie also thinks when your kitchen is clean, your life is just a little better and feels she should confess now that almost everything she's learned about food has come from Top Chef. Finally, she thinks whims are highly underrated as she launched both Style Lush and now Food Lush on such whims, and she's pretty ridiculously proud of how they've both turned out.
You can email Jennie directly at shelikespurple AT gmail DOT com and follow her Twitter rantings at twitter.com/shelikespurple.
Writers:
Jessica has had a long-lasting love affair with food that began when she was just 8 years old and made her first dinner for the family; it was Fettuccine Alfredo and could've easily ended her cooking career right there. Fortunately for her, and her entire family, the meal was successful and put her solidly on the path to being the cooking-show addict she is today. A recently converted vegetarian with a husband and teenage son who decidedly aren't, the majority of her current cooking endeavors involve figuring out hearty enough meals where the meat isn't missed, sneaking meat substitutes past her, son or making two meals at a time. She also believes in the power of dessert and will often order it as her meal or "plan properly" by checking the dessert menu before ordering.
You can follow Jess on Twitter at twitter.com/justexpressive.
Nora recently moved from the DC area back to her small hometown in Connecticut after inheriting her grandparents’ house. She now lives at the end of a cul-de-sac and is embracing rural-suburban life with her husband, three cats, wimpy cattle dog, and baby daughter, who Nora hopes won’t grow up to be a picky eater like her dad. Nora is also having a love affair with her renovated kitchen, and would probably sleep in there if it wouldn’t weird out her family. She currently works from home full-time for a cancer society in an editorial-type job, which yes, is as exciting as it sounds. There are few things that make Nora happier than a long, hot shower, a cheesy horror flick, and a really good butternut squash and apple soup, which she has yet to find anywhere other than a remote island off the coast of western Canada.
You can follow Nora on Twitter at twitter.com/hopeitkeepsup.
Katie lives with her husband in Chicago. She spends her days working as a lawyer and her evenings cooking and watching dvr-ed tv. She enjoys cookbooks, cooking shows, and cooking gadgets. Also: eating. This makes Food Lush an excellent fit. She can also be found at her personal blog, pseudostoops and sharing healthy recipes at Bodies in Motivation.
Elissa is a born-and-raised Californian who has been living in Washington, DC for most of the last decade. She's a lawyer with a bottomless appetite for dessert (and pretty much all other food, too). She's the primary cook for a family that includes an easygoing husband from Kentucky and wacky toddler (he was born in March 2009). Her cooking and eating goals include getting more homecooked dinners on the table, eating more vegetables, discovering new knock-out dessert recipes, and raising a good eater. She loves anything that combines chocolate and hazelnut, great wines that cost less than $15 a bottle,
recipes that can be assembled on a weeknight in less than 45 minutes, gifts of homemade food, and top-notch ethnic food.
Jen L. is a born and bred Southerner who spent a great deal of her young adulthood in New York City, thus giving her the palate of a garbage disposal. (Translation: she'll eat almost anything ... except mayonnaise and olives.) Her first love is baking, but she's great at cooking for crowds and has a soft-spot for comfort food. Her husband, Marcus, worked for years in the restaurant industry and makes the best tacos on the planet. Jen and Marcus are the parents of four-year-old Dean, who can recite the recipe for tea cakes from memory. In real life, Jen is the Production Stage Manager for the Alabama Shakespeare Festival and serves on the editorial board for Southern Theatre Magazine. Read more about her adventures at Hey, Y'all and follow her tweets @jennelsonlane.
Slynnro is an attorney living in Dallas, with her husband Aaron, who is also an attorney. Fortunately for her, she has the kind of legal job that makes great dinner party conversation. Unfortunately for Aaron, he is a securities attorney. She loves the Baylor Bears, the Texas Longhorns, the San Antonio Spurs, and the Real Housewives of Atlanta. Having discovered in the past few years that she has an allergy to gluten, she spends a fair amount of time staring longingly at loaves of Ciabatta bread at Whole Foods. Mercifully, champagne is naturally gluten free. She is now attempting to not subsist on Amy's Kitchen gluten free dinners and peanut butter chips alone. You can read more about these exciting pursuits on her personal blog, the aptly named, Slynnro.
Elsha is a 20-something Colorado girl and a chemical engineer turned homemaker. She spends most of her day entertaining her two kids, Kalena (born May 2008) and Will born (December 2009). When she’s not entertaining the under-three crowd she likes to blog, read, and yes, cook. Once a strict recipe follower, she’s now much more adept at throwing things together and making it taste good. That is thanks mostly to her husband Brian who also loves to cook and can, thankfully, take over kitchen duties at a moment’s notice. Elsha has a weakness for Diet Coke and microwave popcorn but tries not to use that as a substitute for dinner (anymore). Cooking for a family of four on a tight budget means she’s always on the lookout for yummy, healthy, inexpensive meals.
Two things to know about Julie: she loves everything about food and she’s a diehard penny pincher. After spending her formative years watching her mother cook and not learning a single thing (much to said mother’s dismay), she married Chris, and together they developed a fondness for watching the Food Network. This made them so hungry she was forced into the kitchen so they wouldn’t try to eat the TV. As CCO (Chief Culinary Officer) for her family, including son, Sammy, and daughter, Sabrina,
Julie tests her creativity to make healthy, tasty meals for as little money as possible. Then, she can spend her savings at some fabulous restaurants (or Target, either way). She also now regularly gleans from the culinary talents of her family, and recently roasted her first Thanksgiving turkey for twenty of her in-laws. Everyone survived.
The day the first Trader Joe’s opens in within driving distance, she’s throwing a party.
Julie covers the chaos of her life at Julaver. Follow her on Twitter at twitter.com/julaver.
Ariel is a 20-something living in Pennsylvania. She feels recipes are more like guidelines and baking is too much like math to be enjoyable. Her favorite cuisine to prepare is Italian and anything that can be cooked in bacon grease. Despite that, healthy eating is a priority along with not emptying the wallet to make the healthy food happen. Besides cooking, Ariel enjoys attempting to maintain a garden, avoiding getting electrocuted during quality (home improvement) time with her husband and partaking in the boozy aspect of being a lush (especially with cheap wine and expensive beer).
You can find her at inanortherntown.net or on twitter at twitter.com/amccollums.
Dani is a freelance writer, editor and horseback-riding instructor from Southern California, where she lives with her handsome husband and a garage full of kayaks, bike parts, camping equipment and Lord-knows-what. She has a B.S. in Journalism from Abilene Christian University, an appreciation for grass-fed beef and open skies from her parent's cattle ranch in Southern Oregon and a host of semi-informed opinions that she can only blame on herself. When she’s not cooking enough food for a family of lumberjacks or obsessively using her Crock-Pot, she can be found enjoying the outdoors, trying to finagle a nomination for herself on What Not to Wear, drinking too much coffee, chasing gourmet food trucks around LA and serving her church. You can read her blog: Wrangler Dani (http://www.wranglerdani.com) or follow her on twitter @wranglerdani.
Caitlin is a 20-something (she feels she should say 20-something now, while she still can) who thought briefly about becoming a chef when she was younger, but decided the working-weekends lifestyle wasn't for her. Later, she married a chef instead, and that has been infinitely more convenient. She and her husband now live in the DC metro area with their two large, obnoxious-yet-loveable cats, and talk about food probably more than is considered socially acceptable. Caitlin likes to focus on simple, whole, quality ingredients that are prepared well. She also likes to know where her food comes from, and at any given time you can find at least 100 pounds of local, grass-fed Virginia beef in her freezer. Her favorite foods are salad and burgers, which actually nicely sums up her struggles between loving food with an unholy passion, and trying to keep it all in balance. When Caitlin is not talking about food, she can usually be found hosting parties with friends, plotting her next trip, making all-natural soaps, pretending she knows anything about decorating her house, or at her marketing day job. She also really hopes that this picture of her ponderously using a cloth napkin causes you to take her QUITE SERIOUSLY.
You can follow Caitlin on Twitter at @hbapothecary.
Tara is a wife, mom, and forgetful (and so-frequent) grocery shopper. She has been married to Jim, a software engineer, for eight years and is a stay-at-home-mom to a busy baby girl, Eriana. Currently she lives in Norman, Oklahoma, and is a Sooner football fan, even when they lose. She loves to take easy recipes and make them more difficult by adding ingredients and using fresh foods. Tara will always follow a recipe to the letter the first time she makes it, but never after that. She has an affinity for red wine, cheddar cheese, and bacon (but not usually together). She has recently become a CrossFit addict, but is still working on getting on board with the Paleo diet. In her spare time she likes to watch television, read, or clean the house.
You can find Tara at www.ourlittlegeekling.com, email her directly at tara AT ourlittlegeekling.com, or contact her on Twitter at @mrsdangelo.
Tara is the mother of three children who all seem to lack the gene that enables them to nap. Her healthy obsessions include jogging, barre fitness classes, and reading. Her unhealthy obsessions include chocolate chip cookies and calamari. Obsessions of negligible health consequence include Radiolab podcasts and Benedict Cumberbatch as Sherlock Holmes. She adores quirky cookbooks and recipes with a story. Foreign travel opportunities have been slim lately, so she satisfies her wanderlust by reading about far away places, sampling their foods, and occasionally watching House Hunters International. You can find Tara at www.musicalsoupeaters.com.
Erica is a stay-at-home mom to two little girls in Austin, TX. She spends most of her waking hours and several of her sleeping hours thinking about food, and considers menu-stalking a legitimate hobby. She believes that 90% of all dishes can be improved with the addition of a poached egg. She has complicated feelings about kale. She owns more cookbooks than novels, but still gets most of her recipes from the internet. You can see what she had for dinner last night at unemployedlawyermom.blogspot.com or contact her on Twitter at @ericahuff.
Maura is a lawyer-turned-teacher who has a passion for sharing her love of food, literature and fitness with anyone who wants to listen (and even those who don't). She lives in Philadelphia with her almost-too-good-to-be-true boyfriend, Will, and their two rescue dogs, Matty and Ollie. She prefers savory over sweet, wine over liquor, and Mexico over... everything else. Follow her on Twitter (@MauraLessa) or send her an email at [email protected].
Jess lives in suburban Maryland with her husband and their three children, who generally prefer chicken nuggets to her latest culinary adventure. She has a habit of forgetting to buy a key ingredient for each new recipe she tries. Jess loves Bavarian food, craft beer, and cake with icing. She washes a lot of dishes.
You can send her an email at [email protected] or follow her on Twitter @jess_mccoy
Sarah is an American transplant in Canada, who is originally from New England and finds herself all the way up in the Pacific Northwest where she lives with her Cop-In-Training husband Andrew and their cat Annie. Formerly a human health risk assessor and a Chiropractic assistant, Sarah is now a housewife working on her next big thing. She hates labels, but loosely adheres to a 'flexitarian' way of eating, which is to say she's mostly vegetarian, sometimes vegan, and every so often she eats a bit of fish. Trying her best to listen to her body and not stress about what she puts in her mouth, she has a serious passion for whole foods, nutrition, and healthy eating that can't be curbed. Sarah is much like a living version of Yelp for Vancouver, and can tell you who serves the smoothest latte, the tastiest in-house made veggie burger or the freshest sushi. Her favourite take-out is Thai, the only vegetable she strongly dislikes is turnip, she's a sushi snob, and loves visiting the farmer's markets as much as she can. When she isn't planning meals, shopping for ingredients or plotting her next culinary experiment, Sarah can be found shoe shopping, finding new ways to wear leopard print or stripes and vociferously offering her opinions on natural health and wellness.
You can follow her on Twitter at @fearnofood and at her personal blog http://www.fear-no-food.net.
