My cooking career, began when my husband Bob transplanted us from Connecticut to Germantown, Tennessee in the summer of 1994.  I was in search of finding the best pizza I could in Germantown, as pizza was a BIG part of our weekly family dinner. Unable to find anything that resembled the awesome New Haven, CT, style pizza, I began experimenting with recipes for my own pizza.   My secret ingredient – Connecticut water!!!

I began giving cooking lessons in my kitchen for a private group of ladies, first class, pizza!  When my kitchen became too small for those interested in taking these classes, I moved to a local cooking school, “Gift Horse”.  Unfortunately, years later that school closed.

In August of 2002 I began teaching classes at Viking Cooking School in Memphis. I was known for my pizza’s! While teaching at Viking I applied for a cooking competition on Food Network’s show called “Ultimate Recipe Showdown”, hosted by Guy Fierri. My recipe, Crawfish & Andouille Sausage Pizza. I was fortunate enough to be one of 10,000 home cooks chosen to participate on the show. Never did I think I would actually win! And I won big, $25,000 and $5,000 Food Network Products sold at Kohl’s. That was a life changing event.

I began doing cooking segments on CBS’s affiliate WREG, continued teaching at Viking and became a Research & Development Consulting Chef for ACH Food Companies.

My pizza party donations have raised over $10,000 for local charities. I now look forward to my next chapter, in home pizza parties.

Recipe developer for “Cooking for a Living”, ACH Cookbook utilizing ACH Food Products
Winner of Food Networks “Ultimate Recipe Showdown”
Winner of Pizza Therapy Worldwide Pizza Recipe Contest
Frequent guest chef on CBS affiliate morning show, WREG Channel 3
Raised over $40,000 for charity by donation of dinner parties
Creator of http://www.foodsinthefastlane.me cooking blog