Bios

Sarah Smee (Editor) - Bio

Sarah Smee works as a medical editor by day and a food editor by night. As the oldest of 6, she’s been cooking for kids since she was a kid herself. Sarah loves to try new recipes and international cuisines. Reading food blogs is her constant hobby, and she looks all over the blogosphere for her inspiration.


Chris Arpante - Bio

Chris Arpante is a middle school administrator in metro Atlanta, Georgia. While she truly enjoys trying to make a difference with her at-risk teens, her blog, Mele Cotte, is a way to bring out her love for food. As she continues on her personal culinary journey, she would welcome the chance to leave my public education heels in the main office and slip into a pair a Dansko clogs behind her own bakery display case. But, until then she will continue with her blogging, expanding her experiences on Sugar Savvy and Kids Cuisine.


Beth Bader - Bio

My resume includes such titles as photojournalist, writer and shark wrangler. There is also a bit of culinary school in the mix. I originally started blogging to write about travel and food, but after becoming a mom, I started exploring close to home. I become a passionate “Local Food” advocate and an author for the Eat Local Challenge. I try to channel that passion into creating healthy, family-friendly, seasonal foods. I love family dinner, cooking for friends, and cooking with my child. You can find me at The Expatriate’s Kitchen.


Rob Benes - Bio

In addition to maintaining his blog and other food freelancing gigs, Rob is currently the Editor of Chef Magazine and Chef Educator Today, with 18 years of writing/publishing experience. A 1998 graduate of the University of Wisconsin-Whitewater with a Bachelor of Arts degree in journalism, Rob’s unique combination of culinary training and journalistic background offers an educated voice of distinguished breadth—he also has an Associate in Applied Science degree in Culinary Arts from the College of DuPage, Glen Ellyn, Ill. His exclusive one-on-one interviews with culinary giants such as Charlie Trotter, Thomas Keller, Nobu Matsuhisa, Tom Douglas, and Paul Prudhomme, among others, affords unique insight into trends and challenges facing today’s culinary professionals and the entire foodservice industry. Additionally, Rob has served as a culinary competition judge at many national events, as well as being invited as a guest chef for special events. Food writing is not a job for Rob, it’s his passion. Rob lives in a western suburb of Chicago, with his wife, Cathy, who works for Kraft Foods, and daughter, Ava, who’s an aspiring food critic.


Nika Boyce - Bio

Nika writes for Kids Cuisine, A Nice Cuppa, and The Spirit World, as well as for her two blogs Nika’s Culinaria (culinary photography and other food topics) and The Progressive HomeSchool (a blog that chronicles her family’s homeschooling adventures). She is a scientist who is taking some time off to raise and educate her three kids while also developing and expanding her food photography and food writing activities.


Amy Casey - Bio

My love of food has been lifelong. It began at an early age when I spent my lunchtime watching Julia Child on PBS. I learned to cook from the many fabulous cooks in my family and countless hours spent reading cookbooks, magazines, blogs, websites, and backs of every package of food I have purchased. After graduating from college, I worked in the business world before “retiring” to become a full time mom to my three kids. I devoted 10 years to being the CEO of my family and decided jump into the food world as soon as the kids were in school full time. A 2-year stint at a gourmet café as cook, menu planner, waitress, and dishwasher fueled my food obsession, and I was hooked for life.
My fascination with food lead me to become a personal chef, and I am the chef/owner of EAT! A Personal Chef Service in northern New Jersey and am a member of the Personal Chefs Network. Always wanting to inflect my love of food on other people, I started my blog Dinners for a Year where I share my collection of recipes, comments, photos, and reviews of the meals I have prepared for my family and friends. I also write for various publications and always looking to spread the good word about the world of food.


Kati Chevaux - Bio

I am a nutritionist, freelance writer and mom to two young sons, ages 3 and 6. Cooking and eating well are important to our family and I love sharing ideas to help children grow up appreciating good food. Before having children, I worked for many years in nutrition research for the food industry.

My Preschool Nutrition site (http://nutrition.preschoolrock.com) in the PreschoolRock.com network offers healthy eating advice, food activities, preschool recipes, and a free recipe of the week newsletter for parents and teachers of preschoolers.

Kristen Doyle - Bio

I reside with my husband and three small children in a suburb of Kansas City. In addition to being a wife and mother, I work part-time from home as a recruiter for the staffing industry. Besides my family, my passions include cooking, entertaining, photography, reading, travel and shopping.

I grew up in a house where family dinner was a priority. We sat around the table almost every evening as a family and ate a nice meal together. With varying hectic schedules this wasn’t always convenient, but it is something that my parents felt was important. Those values are ones I am striving to implement in my own home. I am a firm believer that having families sit down at night to eat dinner together can help to solve a lot of the problems in the world today. Families that eat, play and pray together, stay together.

I have always loved to cook, but I have not always been good at it. There were many times when I was younger that I’d make cookies and forget to add the dry ingredients. My family still teases me to this day about the number of times I caught our kitchen stove on fire. I used the smoke alarm as my signal that things were done instead of the timer. I’ve come a long way…that’s for sure! In addition to writing for Just Baking and Kids Cuisine, I maintain two blogs… Dine and Dish, where I chronicle my adventures in cooking and entertaining, and Dishing it Up Family Style, where I document how our family is keeping us entertained.

Alisa Fleming - Bio

Alisa is the founder and editor of the informational website, Go Dairy Free, and author of the guidebook, “Dairy Free Made Easy.” Her mission to make special diets and healthy eating enjoyable prompts hours of recipe experiments, product trials, and restaurant hopping each week.

Born and raised in Portland, Oregon, Alisa traded in her webfeet for sunny (high) desert living several years ago. Though she misses the fresh produce from local farms, visits to the Northwest quickly remind her that she doesn’t miss the rain. Aside from food, her favorite pastimes include women’s soccer, international travel, quality time with her cat Rosie, and very long walks with her husband.

Lizzie Marie and Doreen

Lizzie Marie (seven years old) - As strange as it may seem, I started cooking at the age of two helping my mom make homemade applesauce. I loved putting the apples in the pot and adding the seasonings. I became more attracted to cooking as I grew older and started my business, Lizzie Marie Cuisine, when I was six in 2006. Teaching kids and adults how simple, fun and tasty healthy foods can be is what I like doing. Filming my online cooking demonstrations is a lot of fun! My goals are to teach people that eating fresh, healthy foods is very important and to study at Le Cordon Bleu in Paris. Visit www.LizzieMarieCuisine.com to enjoy and learn from my videos.

Doreen (Lizzie Marie’s mom) - Julia Child sparked culinary curiosity within me as a young girl. Though I did not always enjoy being in the kitchen with my mother (she worried too much about me making a mess), I was always watching her. Now that I have my own kitchen, it’s acceptable to make a mess as long as fun is being had creating delicious meals. My daughter’s, Lizzie Marie, passion for cooking is constantly increasing. As I improve my cooking skills, Lizzie Marie is my partner in the kitchen. I enjoy working with her in building her business and watching her entrepreneurial spirit blossom. When a child is empowered, anything is possible.

Kiki Nweeia - Bio

Kristen “Kiki” Nweeia is a freelance journalist and gourmet food professional based in Connecticut and New York City. She focuses on the food, tea, wine and travel industries. As mom to a toddler daughter she takes an active interest in making kid’s cuisine fun, tasty and healthy. Ms. Nweeia is owner of Splendid Palate, a gourmet business specializing in importing and distributing French food products and gifts. She is also the founder and organizer of Tea Tour NY, a tea group geared toward exploring tea spots in and around New York City. Tea Tour NY provides a hands-on approach to enjoying and learning about tea and related cultures in a fun and interactive environment. Ms. Nweeia has been drinking tea for twenty years and draws from professional experience gained within the tea industry. She is a member of local and international culinary organizations and has studied food journalism at the French Culinary Institute under the guidance of the esteemed food critic Alan Richman. She is a regular contributor to the Kids Cuisine, Well Fed on the Town, A Nice Cuppa, Paper Palate, Wine Sediments and Suite101.

Cate O’Malley - Bio

For as long as I can remember, I have loved writing and yearned to be a freelance journalist when I grew up. When I moved out on my own for the first time, I discovered a second passion … cooking. Now, many years later, I still have a love for both and started my site, Sweetnicks, in an effort to combine them. I have a slight, ahem, obsession with cookbooks, food/cooking magazines, and, well, anything related to food. Joining the food blogging community, it’s great to be among others who get the obsession. My site’s name comes from my 5-year-old son, Nicholas, who loves to help me in the kitchen almost as much as he loves Dora, Spiderman and his girlfriend.

Sandy Smith - Bio

Although I’ve been a full-time freelance writer and editor for almost fifteen years, I’ve been eating and cooking for quite a bit longer than that. I enjoy artisanal baking, and I work with publishers to develop and test recipes as a technical editor for cookbooks. I also write regularly on culinary and other topics for various print and online media. Here on the Well Fed Network, I write for Kids Cuisine, Just Baking, Paper Palate, Sugar Savvy, and Growers and Grocers. Elsewhere, I write the LocalFoodBlog.com (www.localfoodblog.com), on local and sustainable foods.

I love every aspect of food—from growing herbs to grocery shopping (really!) to cooking, baking, and writing about obscure Colonial dishes and cave-aged farmhouse cheeses. I grew up in a home where the preparing and sharing of food was an expression of love, and the kitchen and dining rooms are still the “living rooms” in our family. I’m deeply grateful for the abundance of excellent food we have so readily available to us in the United States, so I try to be a good steward of that resource, and my husband and I are teaching our kids to do the same. At our family’s table, we eat as seasonally, and enjoyably, as possible.

Michelle Stern - Bio

Michelle Stern’s enthusiastic, earth friendly approach to helping guide busy families towards healthful meals together makes her a natural fit for the Well Fed team. In her former life, Michelle was a high school science teacher who, during one research stint, logged field hours studying monkey mating behavior on an island off of Puerto Rico.


Now Michelle is a mother of two and the founder of What’s Cooking, a green business that offers healthy and seasonal cooking classes and birthday parties to kids in the San Francisco Bay Area. In her online shop you’ll find unique sustainable gifts and party favors as well as What’s Cooking Weekly, an online subscription service for healthy family menus, including recipes, grocery lists, nutrition information and tips on getting kids involved in the preparation of meals through the week.

Erika Waz - Bio

I am a stay-at-home Mom with a passion for my family and my food. I love to cook, especially baking and candy-making. My husband, Andy, is a willing guinea pig, while my children Abigail (6) and Zander (2) challenge me daily to come up with healthful food that they will eat too. I have aspirations of someday making a career out of my love for food, but until then I will happily spend my time feeding those I love most. I keep a chronicle almost daily of our adventures on my blog, Tummy Treasure, which has a little bit of family and a little bit of food all mixed up together.