(Last name rhymes with wiggle.)

I am a food writer, author, editor, recipe developer, translator and teacher. A forager of sorts, I hunt for stories on everything from food, wine and restaurants to kitchens, travel and health.

I lived in France for fifteen years -- and earned a Grand Diplome at Ecole de Cuisine La Varenne. As often as I can, I return to write about the food scene and top French chefs in Paris and beyond, including Pierre Herme, Michel Bras, Pierre Gagnaire, Alain Passard, Guy Savoy, Alain Ducasse, Bertrand Grebaut, David Toutain, Tatiana Levha and Yves Camdeborde.

I must be especially voluble about cheese, because I was inducted into the master cheesemongers guild in France, the Confrerie de Saint-Uguzon. (Their medieval-looking medal comes decorated with a cow, a sheep, a goat and a shepherd. It s heavy; this must be what it feels like to wear a cowbell.)

So, yes, I speak French. But because it s never too late to learn a new language, I ve also been studying Spanish and living part time in Mexico, which allows me to tell even more stories through food. (Many more: twenty-plus countries in the world are Spanish speaking!) When I am at home, I teach Sabores Latinos, a cooking class in Spanish at the Martin Luther King Jr. Community Center in Newport, RI.

More background: I m a Food & Wine emerita, after 10 years as a contributing writer and, before that, nine-plus years as a senior food editor. My stories have also appeared in The New York Times, Saveur, The Wall Street Journal, Time Out New York, Everyday with Rachael Ray, Wine & Spirits, Fine Cooking, Australian Gourmet Traveller, The Statesman (Calcutta) and many other publications.

I m the author of multiple cookbooks, including the IACP Cookbook Award finalist Bistronomy: Recipes from the Best New Paris Bistros; Backroad Bistros, Farmhouse Fare, a tribute to classic French provincial cooking; and the cookbook and travelogue Normandy Gastronomique -- there are even French and British editions!

I help others write cookbooks, too: I developed the recipes for the gastronomic guide Hungry for France. I m a co-author of A Table at Le Cirque, the portrait of a high-society New York institution, and of Neue Cuisine, a modern Austrian cookbook, with chef Kurt Gutenbrunner, who presides over a mini restaurant empire in New York. And I got to investigate Greek cooking via New York, Yountville and Atlanta with chef Pano Karatassos in Modern Greek Cooking.
For more information about all my books, click here.

Before editing at a magazine, I was a cookbook editor at Macmillan USA. As a project editor at Rizzoli, I managed the translation, editing, design and production of the French pastry bible Patisserie, now in an updated edition after seven-plus printings. My own translations include the 1,000-recipe compendium La Cuisine: Everyday French Home Cooking by TV personality and bestselling author Francoise Bernard.

I have appeared on French television and on CNN to chat about cooking school vacations in France. I was a panelist at the International Association of Cooking Professionals annual conference in Santa Fe, New Mexico. New York University department of food studies invited me to talk about getting published (being an expert on something helps). I have been a judge too, reviewing exams at the French Culinary Institute and selecting winners at the Slow Food American artisanal cheese contest and at the Turks & Caicos Conch Festival. I traveled across the United States, scouting for Food & Wine annual Best New Chefs. (Sometimes I m the one being judged, for instance, as a member of the Bird Brains journalist team at DArtagnan Duckathlon VI.) As a Joseph Hoare Gastronomic Writer in Residence, I taught food writing at the Stratford Chefs School in Ontario, where I am now on the advisory board.