Grace Parisi

Title: Senior Recipe Developer

Years at Food & Wine: 12+

Born and Raised: Long Island, New York

Background: I have a degree in music performance and painting. I never attended culinary school, but do come from a family of chefs and restaurateurs. I began my career in "cooking" as a food stylist for TV commercials, where I combined "artistic expression" with my love of food-mostly by painting partially roasted turkeys with a combination of Gravy Master and cheap liquid soap, gluing chicken skin onto the flesh with Krazy Glue, spraying french fries with shellac and hand-gluing sesame seeds to hamburger buns.

What I Do at Food & Wine: Test and develop recipes appearing in the magazine, including creating original recipes for the Fast and Tasting & Testing columns. I also do lots of TV cooking demos, including a monthly appearance on NY1.

Favorite Foods: Pizza, kimchi jjigae (Korean pork-and-spicy-kimchi stew), granola and yogurt with apples and almonds.

Favorite Cheap Eat: Salvadoran street food at the soccer fields in Red Hook, Brooklyn.

Favorite Splurge: Carbo-loading on spaghetti and meatballs before running a marathon.

Most Memorable Meal: Stuffed roasted chicken prepared by my boyfriend, now my husband, on our second date 20 years ago.

Books: In 1997 I published Summer-Winter Pasta (William Morrow). My 2005 book, Get Saucy (Harvard Common Press), was nominated for a James Beard Award for Best Single Subject Book.