The Amazing Women of the Food52 Multiverse

Women’s History Month is underway, and while it’s always a welcome, 31-day-long reminder for us to reflect upon remarkable women—it just feels so stuffy and perfunctory, doesn't it?

So, to celebrate this month Food52-style, we’re rebranding it “Women Are Amazing Month.” Throughout March, we’ll be profiling incredible, talented women working in two of our favorite fields: food and design. To kick things off, we’d like to point you to the stories of these world-changing women. Then, go back in time with us as we celebrate so many of the female colleagues, contributors, and creators who have made our cooking (and our lives) immeasurably better over the years.

Contributors & Colleagues Who Changed the Way We Cook

Alice Medrich, First Lady of Chocolate

A living baking legend who popularized the chocolate truffle in America, Alice has authored and contributed to over a dozen award-winning cookbooks, and shared countless baking tips and recipes with us.

Try this variation on her famous one-bowl chocolate cake:

Allison Bruns Buford, Food52 Test Kitchen Manager

Allison joined Food52 in its early days in 2012, and is still the backbone of our test kitchen. She makes every recipe shine, including this killer black-bean burger (her own).

Amanda Hesser, founder of Food52

We would not be compiling this list were it not for Amanda Hesser! Beyond launching this now-famous food site and curated shop from her Brooklyn kitchen, Amanda continuously inspires us to go beyond the expected. Writes former editor Kelly Vaughan (who now develops recipes at the TODAY Show), “[She] taught me that food and writing are at their best when they’re not perfect—when you acknowledge that mistakes are as much a part of cooking as they are life. You loosen your apron ties, maybe accidentally drop a pie crust on the floor, get messy over and over again, and have fun with it—that’s the best kind of relationship a home cook (or writer) can have with their craft.”

Try her very fun, not at all fussy fish tacos:

Anna Billingskog, Senior Food Stylist

Anna makes our recipes look picture perfect for every photoshoot at Food52. Lately she’s begun developing more of her own recipes, like these Earl Grey-scented buns:

Brinda Ayer, former Director of Content

Brinda started at Food52 editing our cookbooks, then rose up to become director of all of our content. She ushered Food52 through the pandemic and edited some of the site’s most beloved columns, like Table for One.

Carolina Gelen, former Food52 Resident

Carolina, who hails from Transylvania, creates playful, unique recipes that manage to be approachable, too. Who can say no to her Éclair Cake?

Coral Lee, former Food52 podcast producer

A features writer, editor, and recipe developer for Food52, Coral also led our podcast program and created Play Me a Recipe and Counterjam, to name a few. She contributed invaluable home-cook how-tos and the thoughtful series, The ABCs of Good Food.

Cristina Sciarra, recipe developer for Ice Cream and Friends

Cristina, an early community member and longtime contributor, came up with 30 spectacular recipes for our ice cream book. You can find her new work at GD Kitchen.

Dorie Greenspan, baker extraordinaire

Another queen of baking, Dorie has graced us with dozens of her foolproof recipes. (We could all use her World Peace Cookies right now). We’ve also done a couple of YouTube series together including Dinner with Dorie and Dorie All Day. Dorie has written countless cookbooks, a few of which have become classics, including Baking with Julia and Dorie’s Cookies.

Ella Quittner, creator of Absolute Best Tests

Equal parts comedic and scientific, the Absolute Best Tests series was Ella's brainchild. From boxed cake to butter, she painstakingly, hilariously uncovered the best way to make just about everything.

Emily Connor (aka EmilyC), columnist & cookbook author

Emily gave us countless delicious, dependable weeknight meals through her column, Dinner’s Ready, and she was our salad whisperer for our book, Mighty Salads.

Emily Ziemski, former Food Editor

Emily knows her way around a great substitution (not to mention food science, astrology, and a recipe Mad Lib). Her Dirty Martini Salad Dressing sparked an edible martini craze, and we're still craving her pickle soup.

Emma Laperruque, creator of Big Little Recipes, cookbook author, former Food Editor

Some of our most popular, and easiest recipes came from Emma’s award-winning column, Big Little Recipes, which we collected into a cookbook of the same name. She’s now at Bon Appetit.

Erin Jeanne McDowell, cookbook author, Food52 Resident, Bake It Up a Notch host

Erin is still teaching us to bake things up a notch after all these years. She first came into the Food52 fold as a repeat winner of our early recipe contests, then worked as a food stylist before becoming our in-house baking expert. Her pie crust tutorial is required viewing for anyone trying to perfect their technique.

Gena Hamshaw, recipe developer & cookbook author

Gena taught us that vegan doesn’t equal boring. Croissants, enchiladas, cream of broccoli soup—nothing is too creamy or buttery for her plant-based makeovers, collected in our Food52 Vegan cookbook.

Hana Asbrink, writer, editor & recipe developer

Hana, now the Deputy Food Editor at Bon Appetit, helmed our home and lifestyle coverage, oversaw our My Life at Home series, and was a frequent contributor to our YouTube channel. This is one of her many excellent recipes:

Kristen Miglore, cookbook author & Food52 founding editor

The very first person that Amanda and Merrill Stubbs hired in 2009 was Kristen Miglore, who created the Genius Recipes franchise at Food52. Its premise was simple (and genius, of course): to highlight the recipes that “get us talking and change the way we cook.” Her column brought culinary luminaries like Rose Levy Beranbaum and Jacques Pépin to the Food52 studio and spawned three New York Times bestselling- and James Beard Award-winning books—Genius Recipes, Genius Desserts, and Simply Genius,—as well as a podcast, The Genius Recipe Tapes, and a YouTube show.

This was her first column:

Lindsay-Jean Hard, writer, recipe developer & former Community Editor

Lindsay-Jean, Food52’s first Community Editor, nurtured conversations and connections on the site and taught us how to maximize every ingredient. She created our Baking Club and Cookbook Club, which are still going strong on Facebook (currently led by our moderator, Linsey Sowa), and she authored a cookbook herself, Cooking With Scraps, focused on sustainable cooking. Lindsay-Jean now works at Zingerman’s and co-authored their latest cookbook.

Mandy Lee, Food52 Resident & host of Escapism Cooking

Mandy Lee turned an unexpected move to Beijing into an opportunity to show us her unbridled passion for bold cooking techniques—like using a blow torch to crisp chicken skin.

Merrill Stubbs, co-founder of Food52, now Board Director & Investor

Merrill began Food52 with Amanda and together, they co-captained the ship as it grew from a two-person operation to a team of nearly 100. Merrill is famous for her madcap side as well as her gift of knowing just what people will want to cook.

Millie Peartree, former Food52 Resident

Chef and former restaurateur Millie Peartree brought her wisdom and delicious cooking to her video series, Behind the Recipe, where she goes deep on the history of traditional Southern dishes.

Nancy, Hotline Whisperer

Our Hotline—the equivalent of a communal help center for menu planning advice, recipe suggestions and corrections—would be a sad, uninformative place were it not for Nancy, a longtime Food52er who has been fielding Hotline questions on a near-daily basis since she joined the community in 2013. She regularly solves reader conundrums about missing ingredients, substitutions and how to feed a crowd at the last minute, and we are eternally indebted to her input. (Shoutout to another VIP in our community, AntoniaJames for reminding us of Nancy's contributions.)

Nea Arentzen, Recipe Developer & Content Creator

Nea makes any baking project look easy wtih smart baking tricks that she sprinkles into all of her videos .

Posie Brien, writer & recipe developer

Posie developed nearly 300 recipes for us, but one of her most popular recipes remains her No-Knead Sourdough, a five-star adaptation of Jim Lahey’s famous recipe. She’s now a Content Editor at King Arthur Flour.

Rebecca Firkser, Writer, Recipe Developer & Food Stylist

Rebecca created our budget recipe column, Nickle & Dine, which she's turned into a Substack. Among the many delicious recipes she developed is this well-loved method for brining turkey:

Samantha Seneviratne, former Food52 Resident

Sam is a gifted writer and expert baker (her latest cookbook, Bake Smart, relays all her wisdom). She and her son Artie hosted our YouTube show, Cook and a Half.

Sarah Jampel, recipe developer & former Food52 editor

A talented writer, recipe developer, and food stylist, Sarah’s recipes and adaptations are visually striking and air-tight. She’s now the recipe development and test kitchen manager at King Arthur.

Sohla El-Waylly, cookbook author & Former Food52 Resident

Sohla's YouTube series, Off-Script with Sohla, taught us how to riff on key cooking techniques. She published her debut cookbook Start Here last year, and shared one of her smart recipes:

Makers, Cooks & Creators We Adore

Marian Bull, ceramist & writer

Multi-talent Marian Bull began working for us as a contributor in the very early days. Soon, we discovered not only what a funny writer she was, but that she had a real knack for making great lunches at work—and “Not Sad Desk Lunch” began. After she left Food52, she started a ceramics business and we later sold her stylish mugs on the site. Full circle! Check out her site here.

Noëlle Bittner, Creator of the Food52 Holiday Swap

In 2011, Food52er Noëlle (aka, enbe) suggested a simple, food-centered gift exchange on our Hotline. Our community jumped at the chance and a tradition was born. She then facilitated the swap year after year—no small endeavor for one person. In 2018 alone, she made sure 1,107 people from 15 countries around the globe took part in the fun. (It was such a feat, The New York Times covered it!)

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