CAROLYNN CARRENO

"I'm not crazy about the word "obsessive," says Carolynn Carreño, award-winning journalist, cookbook writer, prolific baker, farm-to-table
fanatic, and all-around food enthusiast. "Because of the image it conjures of a woman so off-balance as to be capable of plunging a bunny rabbit into a... more >

"I'm not crazy about the word "obsessive," says Carolynn Carreño, award-winning journalist, cookbook writer, prolific baker, farm-to-table
fanatic, and all-around food enthusiast. "Because of the image it conjures of a woman so off-balance as to be capable of plunging a bunny rabbit into a
pot of boiling water" (Something she would do only if a recipe demanded it.) But, says Carreño, who has written features for Food & Wine, Bon Appetit,
Saveur, Gourmet, and The Los Angeles Times (among others), and won a James Beard award in 2006 for a story on that most riveting of subjects,
bullion cubes, "I am willing to concede that my relationship to food is, at times, a bit excessive." She thinks about food even when she's not eating, cooks even when she's not hungry, and buys food when she has no plans to cook--or even a kitchen to cook it in. She cooks when she's happy. Cooks when she's sad. Cooks when she's in love or only wishes she were. Writing about food was--pardon the expression--a chicken and egg story. "What else was I supposed to write about?"

Included in a long list of hands-on food experience, Carreño sold fruit (including over 30 types of antique apples) at the Greenmarket in New York,
and possibly the world's most famous vegetables at the famed Chino Farms in Rancho Santa Fe, California. She worked as a baker at the most expensive food store on the planet, Loaves & Fishes. She completed a one-week internship at Chez Panisse, where she plucked parsley leaves off their stems and peeled onions next to the best of them. And she worked the Tavola (that's "table" to you) at Gino Angelini's three-star restaurant, La
Terza, where she drizzled, sprinkled, nestled, spooned, and otherwise meticulously finished delicious small plates in a weekly gig with the finishing queen if there is one, Nancy Silverton.

Carreño has been passionate about sustainability--using seasonalproduce grown on local, family-owned farms--since long before she knew there
was a word for it. "It has been scientifically proven on numerous cross-country drives that I simply cannot drive by a fruit stand or farmers market
without stopping." When people ask her if she's a good cook, her standard response is: "I cook good food." It's not about her sophisticated cooking
skills, she insists, because she doesn't have any. I am proud to say I have never used a square of cheesecloth in the kitchen. I would be fine if I died never having Frenched a rack of anything. And I try to avoid any recipe that requires string." So how come her food tastes as good as it does? "I know
what to buy, when to leave well enough alone--and who to call when I need help." Don't we wish we had her Rolodex next to our stoves. < less