Bruce Aidells founded Aidells Sausage Company in California in 1983. He left the company in 2002 to pursue a food-writing career. A regular contributor to Gourmet, Bon Appétit, Food and Wine, Cooking Light, and Fine Cooking, he has also shared his meat expertise in several cookbooks, including The Complete Meat Cookbook, Bruce Aidells' Complete Sausage Book, and the meat and poultry chapters of the revised Joy of Cooking.

Robin Asbell cooks, teaches, and writes in Minneapolis. Her passion for sharing delicious natural foods has led to an adventurous journey from restaurant kitchens to the writing life. She was introduced to chèvre at her local farmer's market and began a love affair with the tangy cheese that has lasted many years. Her latest book is The New Whole Grains Cookbook.

New York City's caterer to the stars, Serena Bass has thrown parties for Andy Warhol, Giorgio Armani, Kate Spade, Sarah Jessica Parker, Nathan Lane, and countless others. Her cookbook Serena, Food & Stories won the James Beard Award for best entertaining book. Photograph by David Loftus.

Terry Brennan is an award-winning photographer who has worked for General Mills, Pillsbury, Budweiser, Target, and many national advertising agencies. "My real passion lies in editorial work," he says, "in which a photographer's freedom to create a story or look through the photograph is much greater."

Canal House is the collaboration of Christopher Hirsheimer and Melissa Hamilton. Hirsheimer, a founder of Saveur magazine, once served as food and design editor of Metropolitan Home. Hamilton was a kitchen director, recipe tester, stylist, and food editor at publications including Cook's Illustrated and Martha Stewart Living. The two began Canal House, a food publishing company and studio, in 2007; their series of cookbooks, Canal House Cooking, can be found at thecanalhouse.com.

Seth Bixby Daugherty was once named as one of the best new chefs in America by Food and Wine magazine. He resigned his post as the head chef at Minneapolis’s lauded Graves 601 Hotel and Cosmos restaurant in order to devote himself full-time to improving the food in our nation’s public schools. He invites you to join him at realfoodinitiatives.com.

Rozanne Gold is an award-winning chef and cookbook author who has written for The New York Times, Bon Appétit, Gourmet, and Oprah. She began her career, at age 23, as first chef to New York Mayor Ed Koch and later helped to create the Rainbow Room and Windows on the World restaurants. She is the author of the 1-2-3 cookbook series, andthe recently published Radically Simple: Brilliant Flavors with Breathtaking Ease.

Darra Goldstein leads a double life as both the Francis Christopher Oakley Third Century Professor of Russian at Williams College and Editor-in-Chief of Gastronomica: The Journal of Food and Culture. Her cookbooks include A Taste of Russia and The Georgian Feast, the 1994 IACP Cookbook of the Year. The return of fine dining to Russia makes her very happy. Photograph by Caleb Kenna.

Dara Moskowitz Grumdahl is the Editor-in-Chief of Real Food, as well as the author of Drink This: Wine Made Simple, a new book devoted to making wine what it should be: An easy-to-buy, easy-to-understand beverage that makes your meals nicer and your life more pleasant. Photograph by Nathan Grumdahl.

Elinor Klivans is a former dessert chef whose work has appeared in national newspapers and magazines, including Bon Appétit, Eating Well, and Fine Cooking. These days she travels around the country teaching, and has also written a great number of dessert cookbooks. Some of her favorites are The Essential Chocolate Chip Cookbook, Cupcakes! and Big Fat Cookies.

Lara Miklasevics began her food career on the other side of the camera, cooking at the renowned New French Café. Today her work as a stylist is in demand at corporations including Heinz, Target, and General Mills as well as in many magazines. She prides herself on using her experience as a chef to make food as appealing on the page as it is on the plate.

Nichol Nelson has worked in food journalism for more than a decade, most recently as an editor with Gourmet magazine. She has contributed to Self, GQ, Glamour, and Details. She currently lives in Los Angeles, where she wonders why recipe books written for children require lemonade be made with a simple syrup, which requires boiling sugar on the stove-top.

Marie Simmons has created recipes and written food articles for dozens of magazines, including Food & Wine, Cooking Light, and Eating Well. For more than 15 years she wrote a monthly column for Bon Appétit magazine, as well as a weekly column for the Los Angeles Times Syndicate. She is the author of 18 cookbooks, including Things Cooks Love, and invites you to join her at mariesimmonsvegetarian.blogspot.com.

Sally Swift is co-creator and Managing Producer of The Splendid Table from American Public Media, as well as co-author with Lynne Rosetto Kasper of The Splendid Table’s How to Eat Supper: Recipes, Stories, and Opinions from Public Radio's Award-Winning Food Show. She still likes to cook. Photograph by Ann Marsden.

Tara Q. Thomas gave up cooking professionally to become a culinary-obsessed writer. She's been a senior editor at Wine & Spirits for the last decade, and writes regularly for the Denver Post, Culture, Gastronomica, and Gourmet.com. This Brooklyn, New York–based mom is also author of The Complete Idiot's Guide to Wine Basics.

Melissa A. Trainer started her culinary career slicing cold-smoked salmon at Ina Garten's Barefoot Contessa in the Hamptons. She went on to become an assistant editor at Gourmet, and a food and travel writer for the New York Times and the Wall Street Journal and is a regular contributor to Amazon’s Al Dente blog. Melissa has lived in and traveled extensively around Alaska although she now lives back in Seattle where she happily researches and writes her own blog hooksforcooks.com.