Meet Karen

I’m Karen! I’m so glad you’re here.

Former chef, cookbook author, food photographer, and the person behind every recipe on this site.

I cook the way I was trained: Start with good ingredients, understand why they work, and don’t apologize for the salt.
These are the recipes I actually make, for the people I love.

Read more about Familystyle Food here.

My expertise

• Professional training: Early in my career, I worked my way into top-tier restaurant kitchens — which is where I developed the technical foundation that still shapes how I develop and test recipes today.
• Personal chef and cooking teacher: From 2007–2014, I cooked for private clients and taught cooking classes, creating everything from elegant dinner parties to practical weeknight meals for families. That work taught me how to make recipes that perform reliably outside a professional kitchen.
• Food journalism and editorial experience: As a contributor to national magazines and newspapers, and a former food editor at the Village Voice, I learned to develop recipes for a broad audience and write about food with clarity and precision — an approach I bring to every post on this site.
• Photography: I photograph every recipe myself, in my home kitchen, using natural light. What you see on this site is the actual food from the recipe — no food styling tricks, no artificial enhancement.

Where it all started

That’s me, not yet walking, with my dad at my grandfather’s ice cream shop, about to get my first taste of the goods.

The shop later became a salsiccia, selling homemade sausage my Papa made himself. I guess the food thing was meant to be.