Our Judges

  • Alison Arnett is a freelance food and agriculture writer. She also co-teaches a food writing class for Harvard Extension. A lifelong journalist, she was the Boston Globe food writer and restaurant critic for 15 years, and previously was assistant managing editor of the Sunday Globe. A native of a Southwest Kansas farming community, she is an avid home cook, gardener, and knitter.

  • Amy Traverso is the senior food editor at Yankee magazine and cohost of public television's Weekends with Yankee, produced in partnership with WBGH. Previously, she served as food editor at Boston magazine and an associate food editor at Sunset magazine. She has appeared on Hallmark Home & Family, The Martha Stewart Show, Throwdown with Bobby Flay, and Gordon Ramsay’s Kitchen Nightmares. She lives in Boston, Massachusetts.

  • Adam Ried is an original cast member and keeper of the Equipment Corner on both America’s Test Kitchen and Cook’s Country from America’s Test Kitchen, and a frequent magazine contributor. Adam cut his gastronomic teeth with a culinary certificate from Boston University and 10 years in the test kitchen, developing and editing recipes and feature stories and leading Cook’s Illustrated’s renowned kitchen equipment-testing and ingredient-tasting programs. An unchecked cookbook addict (and author), he is a regular cooking columnist for the Boston Globe Magazine and ChopChop. He also has taught cooking and food writing, and has written for numerous local, national and international publications.

  • Jane Kelly, co-founder and CEO of Eat Your Books, was frustrated by how long it took to find a recipe in her own vast cookbook collection, so she came up with the idea for EYB as an easy solution to find recipes and utilize more of the books on her shelf. With a lifelong interest in cookbooks and cooking at home, Jane launched her first company in the late 90s - an online business selling cookbooks.

    Jane started her career in the music and TV industry in the UK, working for the independent record label Stiff Records, starting the first music TV station in Europe, and running one of the Virgin Group companies. She currently lives near Boston, Massachusetts and has two adult children, both living in New York City. When she's not cooking or working, you can find her playing pickleball, crafting cocktails for friends, or watching movies.

  • Margaret Hathaway is half of the wife and husband team behind seven books on food and farming, including the memoir The Year of the Goat, the guide Living With Goats, two volumes of the Portland, Maine Chef’s Table cookbook, and the Maine Bicentennial Community Cookbook. Margaret is a writer and goat farmer who has worked in cookbook publishing and as manager of New York’s landmark Magnolia Bakery. Her husband, Karl Schatz, is a photographer, journalist, and goat farmer who has worked as a Photo Editor at Time Magazine and as Director of Aurora Photos. Since 2005, the couple has lived with their three daughters on Ten Apple Farm, their homestead and agritourism business in southern Maine, where they raise dairy goats, tend a large garden and small orchard, lead goat hikes, teach workshops, and operate a guest house. You can visit them at tenapplefarm.com.

  • Catherine Walthers is a food + cocktail writer and author of four cookbooks, including Greens, Glorious Greens; Raising the Salad Bar; Soups + Sides; and her latest; Kale, Glorious Kale: 100 Recipes for Nature’s Healthiest Green. She co-founded two organizations promoting local food and has organized dozens of food events from the Heavy Nettles and Kale Fests to oyster and honey tastings. A former journalist, Catherine received her chef’s degree from the National Institute for Food and Health in New York City and works as a private chef in Boston and Martha’s Vineyard. Her home and cooking school is on Martha’s Vineyard, where she loves to fish, forage, garden, visit farms and cook. You can find her on Instagram and at Catherinewalthers.com.

  • Michael Floreak is a food writer and brand strategist who lives and often eats in Cambridge, Massachusetts. His interviews with authors, chefs, writers and characters from across the food world appear regularly in The Boston Globe and To Market. He recently completed his Masters of Arts in Gastronomy from Boston University. Find him on Twitter @floreak.

  • Peggy Grodinsky has been writing and editing stories about restaurants, chefs, home cooking and cookbooks for some 20 years and cooking with joy for a lot longer than that. She has worked at newspapers, magazines and nonprofits, including 7 years at the James Beard Foundation, 3+ years at The Houston Chronicle and 5 years at America's Test Kitchen. She's also taught food writing at Harvard University Extension School and New York University. Her story on the relationship of a Portland chef and a dishwasher was featured in the Best Food Writing 2017 anthology edited by Holly Hughes. Today, Grodinsky oversees sections on food and on sustainability (including farm- and fish-to-table issues) at the Portland Press Herald in Maine, and she writes herself whenever she can squeeze in the time.

  • Sarah is the editor-in-chief, co-owner and publisher of Edible Boston and Edible Worcester with her husband, Chris. Having served as managing and digital editor, recipe editor, marketing director and account manager since she joined the magazine in 2010, Sarah has extensive knowledge of the local food community in Greater Boston and Worcester County and a deep interest in sustainable living, home cooking and sharing her passion for both. A graduate of Middlebury College with degrees in the History of Art and Italian, she’s worked as a recipe developer, personal chef/caterer, farm stand retailer, Italian imports buyer, cheesemonger and produce buyer among various other positions in both food service and food retail businesses. Sarah and Chris live in Wayland with two teenagers and a rambunctious bird dog, spending free time jogging, hiking, soccer spectating, minding a sourdough starter and tending a kitchen garden.

Emeritus Judges

  • With more than twenty years’ experience as a lifestyle writer and editor of lifestyle topics in New England and beyond, Alexandra Hall has covered fashion, travel, entertainment, food, beauty, parenting and education, and culture at large. A native Bostonian, she graduated from Wheaton College in Massachusetts with an honors degree in English Literature and then from Le Cordon Bleu Institute in Paris, France, where she simultaneously wrote for The International Herald Tribune and The New York Times. After returning to Boston, she spent five years as food editor of Microsoft’s bostonsidewalk.com, and then as editor-in-chief of Ticketmaster’s boston.citysearch.com, before working as senior lifestyle editor for five years at Boston Magazine covering fashion, food, beauty, home design, and overseeing the publication’s annual “Best of Boston” issue. Following that, she was senior editor with dailycandy.com before accepting a position as Editor of Niche Publications for The Boston Globe, where she served as editor of Fashion Boston, a monthly lifestyle magazine, and also covered food, travel, and parenting. She is currently a freelance writer for publications including: The Boston Globe, Yankee Magazine, Boston Magazine, Bon Appétit, Town & Country, Boston Common, American Way, and Elle Decor. She has recently moved to the Portland, Maine area with her beloved blended family and endlessly entertaining Wheaten Terriers.

  • Barbara Haber is the former curator of books at the Schlesinger Library at the Radcliffe Institute at Harvard,where she developed a large collection of cookbooks and books on the history of food. She writes on the history of food and is a public speaker on the subject.

  • Lisë Stern is the editor of Taste of the Seacoast, a semiannual magazine the covers food, drinks, and entertaining in coastal New Hampshire, northeastern Massachusetts, and southern Maine. Her work has been published in many publications, and she is the author of four food-related books, including Culinary Tea and How to Keep Kosher.

  • Sam Hayward is the chef and a partner at Fore Street, Portland, Maine. Throughout a cooking career spanning forty years in Maine, Sam has delved deep into Maine’s food history, farming, fisheries, and wild foods. In 2004 Sam was named Best Chef-Northeast by the James Beard Foundation, and in 2011 was named Sustainer of the Year by Chefs Collaborative. In 2018, Sam was a semi-finalist for the Beard Foundation’s Outstanding Chef award. He lives in rural Bowdoinham with his wife Jan and various other creatures.

  • Nancy Harmon Jenkins is an authority on Mediterranean cuisines, on the Mediterranean diet and its consequences for good health, on extra-virgin olive oil, and (to her own surprise) on ancient Egyptian maritime technology. She is the author of many books, the latest of which is a collaboration with her daughter, Chef Sara Jenkins:The Four Seasons of Pasta(Avery Books, October 2015). Also in 2015 she published Virgin Territory: Exploring the World of Olive Oil (Houghton Mifflin, February 2015). She has spoken at numerous international conferences on a range of topics from olive oil and the Mediterranean diet to sustainable food systems and the state of the oceans and responsible seafood consumption. She has led food tours of Italy, Spain, and Tunisia, and served as a writer, coordinator and co-producer for a series of videos about the foods and wines of southern Spain, Sicily, and Puglia. Before launching her freelance career in the 1990’s, she was a staff writer at The New York Times and later served as Publications Director of the American Institute of Wine & Food. She was a founding director of Oldways Preservation and Exchange Trust, an organization she continues to work with from time to time.

  • Bruce Weinstein and Mark Scarbrough are the bestselling authors of the Instant Pot Bible series of cookbooks, among more than 30 others. They are the owners of MediaEats, a culinary production company, were nominees for 2011 and 2015 James Beard Awards, won the 2015 IACP Award, and are the longest-serving columnists on WeightWatchers.com, as well as regular contributors to the Washington Post, Fine Cooking, and Cooking Light.

  • Megan Elias is a historian and gastronomist whose work and research explores the rich history of food and culture through prisms of food writing, markets, and home economics. She has taught at Queensborough Community College, worked in administration at the Borough of Manhattan Community College, and was the director of online courses at the Gilder Lehrman Institute of American History. In addition to developing curricula and producing online courses, Dr. Elias has designed and taught classes in the areas of food studies, food in world history, American women’s history, and African-American history. Elias is the author of Food on the Page: Cookbooks and American Culture (2017) as well as four other books about food history, including Food in the United States, 1890–1945, which was selected by the American Library Association as an Outstanding Academic Text for 2009. She is the author of articles and book chapters about food history, and serves as an editor for Global Food History Journal. She has been a co-recipient of several grants from the National Endowment for the Humanities, among other organizations.

  • Becky Sue Epstein is an award-winning author, journalist, and consultant in the fields of wine, spirits, food, and travel. Currently based in New England, she is an editor at national publications: Intermezzo Magazine, www.PalatePress.com, and regular contributor for iwineradio.com and the Chinese magazine Fine Wine & Spirits. Epstein began her career as a restaurant reviewer for the Los Angeles Times while working in film and television. For the past 20 years, she has been providing food, wine, and spirits coverage for local, regional, and national publications on both the East and West Coasts, from Art & Antiques to Food & Wine and Wine Spectator. She is also the author of several books including “Champagne: A Global History”, “Brandy: A Global History”, “The American Lighthouse Cookbook” and “Substituting Ingredients”.

  • Hi. I’m Kerry! I’m an entrepreneur, journalist, editor, communicator, traveler, brand builder, marketer, creative dynamo and influencer.I’m passionate about food, culture, history, travel, American football and global football (soccer) and have helped moved the market in multiple verticals.

    I spent my professional life reporting from the forefront of global trends in food, travel and culture. I began covering the American craft beer movement in 1993, long before it was cool. The Boston Herald hired me in 1998 to pen what was one of America’s very first craft beer column at a big-city daily newspaper. My reporting helped put the industry and many popular brands on the map. I spent 20 years covering food, beer and travel for The Boston Herald, while also reporting for publications such as Esquire, Yankee Magazine, Boston Magazine, various Conde Nast publications and many other outlets. I was twice named North America’s best beer writer at The Great American Beer Festival for my work covering the industry.

    I’m also the founder of the innovative media darling NFL website Cold, Hard Football Facts.com, where I invented 22 new football statistics and helped reshape the way Americans and the American media analyze football. I covered the NFL for Sports Illustrated, appeared on NFL Films many times, and yakked about football stats on radio and TV stations all over the country. Cold, Hard Football Facts won numerous awards for the America’s best NFL reporting, analysis and feature writing. The late, great Steve Sabol of NFL Films was one of Cold, Hard’s biggest supporters and built many programs around my content.

    My specialty is seeing trends before they happen and helping move them forward. I was among the very first reporters to cover urban renewal trends in once down-and-out locations such as Williamsburg, Somerville and the London Docklands – now among the world’s coolest, most valuable communities; among the very first reporters in the world to cover craft beer; and among the very first sports writers in America to tackle innovative new forms of football analysis, in a sport that spent more than 100 years ruled by cliches and aphorisms.

    Today, I work with great chefs, restaurants and municipalities as the founder of KJB Trending Hospitality, my powerful highly personalized public relations firm which capitalizes on my years of expertise, knowledge and contacts in the fields of global travel, food, lifestyle, sports, coupled with my own instinctive creativity.

    We select clients very carefully and drive business and attention for all our brands. Bottom line: we make things happen, with the history to prove it.

    I still travel frequently, and blog here about all my interests.

  • Ilene Bezahler

  • As the associate digital editor for Yankee magazine and its website, NewEngland.com, Katherine Keenan creates food content for and manages the magazine’s social media platforms and digital channels. A graduate of Smith College with a degree in English Literature, she currently lives in and frequents the grocery store aisles of Kittery, Maine. Find her on Instagram @katherine_keenan.

  • Andrea Pyenson, who grew up in the Boston suburbs, has been writing about food for nearly 20 years and enjoying it for a lot longer than that. Her articles have appeared in The Boston Globe, Edible Boston and Edible Cape Cod, among other publications and various websites. She was the editor of To Market magazine for the publication's launch. She co-authored "Wicked Good Barbecue," "Wicked Good Burgers" and "Grill to Perfection" with Andy Husbands and Chris Hart and has edited cookbooks and travel guides.

  • Molly Stevens has been named Cooking Teacher of the Year by both Bon Appétit and IACP. Her recipes and articles have appeared in Bon Appétit, Food & Wine, Fine Cooking, Eating Well, The Wall Street Journal, Everyday with Rachel Ray, Real Simple, Yankee, and other national publications. Molly has been described in the New York Times Book Review as “a beautifully clear writer who likes to teach.”

    From 2000 through 2005, Molly co-edited the annual series, The Best American Recipes (Houghton-Mifflin) with Fran McCullough. In 2006, Molly and Fran culminated the series by publishing The 150 Best American Recipes: Indispensable Dishes from Legendary Chefs and Undiscovered Cooks (Houghton-Mifflin), which was nominated as an IACP finalist. Previously, Molly co-authored One Potato, Two Potato: 300 Recipes from Simple to Elegant (Houghton-Mifflin) with Roy Finamore. She also wrote New England, part of the Williams-Sonoma New American Cooking Series (Time-Life).

    Born and raised in Buffalo, NY, Molly comes from a large family who loves to gather around the table – and always makes room for guests. In her early twenties, she moved to France to pursue her dream of living a life dedicated to food and cooking. After several years abroad, she returned home to work at the French Culinary Institute in New York City. She later settled in Vermont where she taught at New England Culinary Institute for nearly a decade. Molly holds a master’s degree from the Bread Loaf School of English and she can’t remember the last time she skipped dinner.

Every year thousands of cookbook fans vote for the People’s Choice, our most beloved award!