Jacquy Pfeiffer

From his apprenticeship at the Jean Clauss Pastry Shop in Strasbourg, France, to exalted positions as the personal pastry chef to a French admiral, the Royal Family of Saudi Arabia, and the Sultan of Brunei, Pfeiffer lived the most worldly of lives before settling in Chicago and eventually founding the French Pastry School. He has won countless awards for his pastry skill both individually and as a coach / instructor a various international events.

Brian Polcyn

The nation’s leading expert on charcuterie, the craft of salting, smoking, and curing meat and fish, Polcyn is an award-winning chef, author, restaurateur, and Schoolcraft culinary school instructor. He created three of Michigan’s most talked about restaurants in the late eighties before opening the Five Lakes Grill in Milford in the late nineties.

John Manion

Midwestern at heart, with a substantial slice of his childhood spent in Brazil, Manion’s culinary interests and experience ranges from Carolina low country cooking at Chicago’s Savannah’s restaurant, to his executive chef position at the acclaimed Mas in the Windy City. He’s currently at work opening his own Chicago restaurant, no doubt pushing Nuevo Latino in yet unexplored directions.

Ted Reader

Through sheer force of cooking skill and personality - he’s drop-dead hilarious - Reader has parlayed his passion for food into a culinary tour de force that includes fourteen cookbooks, aisles of food products, and countless tv and radio cooking performances. Beginning his career at several of Toronto’s best restaurants, he currently travels North America towing a double-wide sized grill winning fans everywhere he goes.

Laura Werlin

A James Beard and International Association of Culinary Professional award-winning cookbook author, Werlin is the nation’s leading writer and authority on cheese. Her latest book, Laura Werlin’s Cheese Essentials: An Insiders Guide to Buying and Serving Cheese demystifies the ever-expansive world of artisanal cheese and will help you make better decisions at the counter.

Carlyn Berghoff

A Culinary Institute of America graduate, Berghoff is a fourth-generation member of Chicago’s famed Berghoff family of restauranteurs. She launched Artistic Events, as a catering company and soon enough was serving U.S. presidents, celebrities, and renown business leaders earning more than $6 million in revenues. She is a proud co-writer of The Berghoff Family Cookbook detailing her family’s story including 150 recipes from the restaurant’s 100 year-plus run.

Mark Molinaro

A graduate of the prestigious New England Culinary School and veteran of several Ritz-Carlton Hotel restaurants around the country, Molinaro is currently the Executive Chef at the NECI where he contributed mightily to the newly released A Master Class: Sensational Recipes from the Chefs of the New England Culinary Institute.

Joyce Goldstein

A pioneer in the northern California restaurant scene, author of ten-plus best-selling cookbooks many of them James Beard Award winners, and a prolific writer for some of the top food magazines in the U.S., the word “legend” is impossible to avoid when discussing Goldstein. Her latest book, Mediterranean Fresh: A Compendium of One-Plate Salad Meals and Mix-and-Match Dressings is destined to reach new heights because it offers 140 delicious and healthy upscale salads that offer entree-like satisfaction.

Cree LeFavour

Cree LeFavour is the daughter of a restaurant owner, She has a Ph.D. from NYU, and writes with warm, witty skill, so her blog at creelefavour.com is widely known and appreciated. She currently lives in upstate New York.

LeFavour is the author of The New Steak: Recipes for a Range of Cuts plus Savory Sides, which has been recently published by Ten Speed Press.

Cree is one of many chefs appearing at the 2008 Epicurean Classic in Traverse City, Michigan. Stay tuned to “chefs” in our blog for more and click the cover for a larger view of the cookbook!

Kim Sunee

South Korean born, then abandoned at three in a marketplace, Sunee landed in New Orleans as an adoptee. There she began an independent, food-centric course of life culminating in Provence.

Her new book, Trail of Crumbs: Hunger, Love, and the Search for Home is a multi-ethnic journal of self-discovery.

Kim is one of many chefs appearing at the 2008 Epicurean Classic in Traverse City, Michigan. Stay tuned to “chefs” in our blog for more and click the cover for a larger view of the cookbook!