Tina Ujlaki

Title: Executive Food Editor

Years at Food & Wine: 22, but it doesn't seem like it.

Born and Raised: New York City

Background: My mother's family made Pick salami, the Hungarian classic; my father was a restaurant-obsessed gourmand. My first kitchen job was making drinks and desserts at Caffè Lena in Saratoga Springs, New York, followed by the world's best education: working as a stagiaire (intern or apprentice) at La Varenne cooking school near Paris. Back in the States, I underwent trial by fire: helping edit Time-Life's The Good Cook series-especially the Variety Meats cookbook.

What I Do at Food & Wine: I'm responsible for making sure all the food we do is delicious, interesting and doable. That requires a lot of eating, drinking, tasting, scouting and recipe-smithing.

Biggest Thrills: Getting to work with so many of my food heroes: Julia Child, Marcella Hazan, Nancy Harmon Jenkins, Edna Lewis, Jacques Pépin, Judy Rodgers, André Soltner and Paula Wolfert.

Three Bs I Couldn't Live Without: Bread, butter and bourbon.

Favorite Cheap Eats: In New York, I love the shawafels from Chickpea, Roomali's kati rolls, pizza from Luzzo's, Golden Unicorn's dim sum, banh mi (Vietnamese sandwiches) from Nicky's and The City Bakery's melted chocolate chip cookies.