Stir it Up! by Marialisa Calta

Type: Text Feature
Categories: NEA, Food.

Cooking doesn't have to feel like a chore, as Marialisa Calta proves in her weekly column, Stir It Up! Calta explains that cooking is a terrific way to celebrate holidays, explore regional and international specialties and create kitchen memories.

A noted cook and award-winning food journalist, Calta is passionate about making homemade meals that are accessible, affordable and fun. Each week, she provides commentary and a recipe for a delicious kitchen creation. Her recipes run the gamut, from Southern-style pimento cheese sandwiches to an eminent restaurant's pickled-apple garnishes. A color food photograph accompanies each column.

From haute cuisine to comfort food, Calta encourages readers to stir it up!

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Marialisa Calta

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Born to an Italian-American mother and an Italian father, Marialisa Calta has eaten well all of her life. Her grandmothers, mother and aunt taught her, along with the “basics” of cooking, such important lessons as how to tell when the gnocchi is done and how to pluck a chicken.

After earning a degree from Columbia University’s Graduate School of Journalism, Calta worked as a reporter for publications ranging from the weekly Seattle Sun to the daily Providence (R.I.) Journal and The Associated Press.

As a freelancer, she has contributed food, lifestyle and travel articles to The New York Times, Gourmet, Eating Well, The Wall Street Journal, Food & Wine, Martha Stewart Living, Woman’s Day and other publications. In the process, she has had the pleasure of interviewing Julia Child, Jacques Pepin, Emeril Lagasse, Mark Bittman, Nina Simonds, Madhur Jaffrey and Alton Brown. She would love to meet the Cake Boss.

Calta is a past winner of the Bert Greene Memorial Award for Food Journalism, given by the International Association of Culinary Professionals. She has co-written four cookbooks, including two with TV personality Al Roker, and has written one of her own: "Barbarians at the Plate: Taming and Feeding the Modern American Family."