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David Leite
Publisher and Editor-in-Chief
David just finished his first book The New Portuguese Table: Exciting Flavors from Europe’s Western Coast, which will be published by Clarkson Potter in August 2009. When not agonizing over a book, he writes about everything from champagne to Welsh food to high tea to being a super taster for publications including the New York Times, Martha Stewart Living, Saveur, Bon Appétit, Gourmet, Food & Wine, Pastry Art & Design, Food Arts, Los Angeles Times, Chicago Sun-Times, The Washington Post, Charlotte Observer, epicurious.com, and Ridgefield Magazine, where he was the food editor for three years. He’s also the resident food geek at The Morning News. David is a frequent guest on the Martha Stewart Living Radio program, Living Today, hosted by Mario Bosquez, often reads his work on public radio’s food program The Splendid Table hosted by Lynne Rossetto Kasper, and has been featured on WTNH-TV and Radical Sabbatical on Fine Living Network.

David won the 2008 James Beard Award for Newspaper Feature Writing Without Recipes for his article, “In a ‘64 T-Bird, Chasing a Date with a Clam” and was nominated in 2009 for his article “Perfection? Hint: It’s Warm and Has a Secret,” both from the New York Times. He’s also a four-time nominee for the Bert Green Award for Food Journalism, which he won in 2006. In addition, he was a 2007 and 2006 winner of an Association of Food Journalists Award. His essays have been included in the Best Food Writing series from 2001 to 2008. Leite’s Culinaria, which David created in 1999, won the 2007 James Beard Award for Web Site Focusing on Food, Beverage, Restaurant, or Nutrition and the 2006 James Beard Award for Best Food Web Site, a 2006 Food Blog Award, the 2005 World Food Media Award for Best Food and/or Drink Web Site, and was named Best Writer’s Web Site for 2002 by Writer’s Digest.

Linda Avery
Executive Food Editor
In her first life, Linda spent 25 years at Leo Burnett Worldwide, in Chicago, where she achieved the level of senior vice president, overseeing compensation and benefits for Leo Burnett Co., Inc. She also acted as the liaison between corporate headquarters and international offices on personnel and compensation issues.

All the while, though, Linda was an avid cook and cookbook reader, littering her kitchen and living room with piles of books. Finally ready to pursue full time her first loves — cooking and travel — she left the corporate world and traveled the world, learning about food, culture, and customs. She took cooking classes at the Gritti Palace in Venice, Italy, and at Giuliano Bugialli’s cooking school in Florence in order to deepen her knowledge of the food of her heritage. She also she studied at the Scottsdale Culinary Institute and at On Rue Tatin in Normandy, France.

In 2003, Linda signed on as a recipe tester for Leite’s Culinaria. Within months she went from being a tester to the recipe testing coordinator. Under her management, the group swelled to almost 200 members. Only months after that, David asked her to take responsibility for the entire recipe division of the site, giving her the title of food editor.

There was synergy between Linda and David, and it kicked off a series of innovations for the site, including the LC store, the extremely popular cookbook giveaways, and the Best 20 of, our annual listing of the best books of the year. In addition, each month Linda reviews countless cookbooks, looking for recipes that reflect the editorial point of view of David and Leite’s Culinaria. As a result, Linda was a recipient, along with David, of the 2007 James Beard Award for Web Site Focusing on Food, Beverage, Restaurant, or Nutrition and the 2006 James Beard Award for Best Food Web Site, the first time a Web site has been honored with a medallion.

In November 2007, Linda emceed our “Talking with Your Mouth Full” readings in Seattle, WA. The readings were a fundraiser for the Leite’s Culinaria Scholarship for Narrative Food Writer to the Symposium for professional Food Writers, which takes place annually at The Greenbrier in White Sulphur Springs, WV. She’s a member of the International Association of Culinary Professionals and co-chaired the 2007 IACP Chicago conference Host City Event, held at the historic Merchandise Mart. In 2008 the American Cheese Society held its 25th annual conference in Chicago, and Linda co-chaired a dining event featuring Chicago’s chefs paired with artisan cheesemakers. She is a board member of the Chicago Chapter of Les Dames d’Escoffier, an organization honoring women of high achievement in the fields of food, fine beverage, and hospitality and is co-chairing their 2010 gala fundraiser. She and her husband divide their time between Chicago, Scottsdale, and exotic locales around the world.

Gary Allen
Food History Editor
Our food history editor, Gary Allen, cooks, eats, dreams, talks, and writes about food. After penning The Resource Guide for Food Writers (Routledge, 1999), an indispensable book for anyone interested in food, Gary edited a book on professional table service, Remarkable Service (Wiley, 2001), for The Culinary Institute of America. His book The Herbalist in the Kitchen, a reference work on herbs and spices, was published in 2007 by the University of Illinois Press.

Gary has contributed articles to Scribner’s Encyclopedia of Food and Culture (2003) and The Oxford Encyclopedia of Food and Drink in America (2004), as well as serving as its associate editor. Encyclopedias featuring his work include Culinary Biographies (2006), The Oxford Companion to American Food and Drink (2007), and Greenwood’s Entertaining from Ancient Rome to the Superbowl: An Encyclopedia. He co-edited, with historian Ken Albala, yet another encyclopedia, Greenwood’s The Business of Food: Encyclopedia of the Food and Drink Industries (2007). Upcoming encyclopedias that will feature his work include Oxford’s International Encyclopedia of Cheese.

He also co-edited, again with Albala, Human Cuisine — an anthology of essays and fiction (with a little poetry and drama) about cannibals. It’s touching, thought-provoking, and, occasionally ridiculous. It even contains a number of — thankfully — untested recipes (BookSurge, 2008).

Occasionally, ‘midst chewing and swallowing, he writes for magazines, e-zines, and symposia, including the Association for the Study of Food and Society, for which he’s been newsletter editor and Web master. You’ll find an index page of his online writings at A Quiet Little Table in the Corner, or visit his own Web site, On the Table. In his spare time, Gary teaches food writing, plus various courses on food history and culture, at Empire State College, part of the State University of New York. If you have any food-history questions, ask them here.

Janet P. Boileau
Editor/Producer of “Talking with Your Mouth Full”
Janet Boileau is a freelance publisher, editor, researcher, and food writer based in Washington, DC. As a world traveler, Janet was involved in book and magazine publishing, corporate communications, and journalism. She lived in Southeast Asia for more than 15 years, where she published articles on travel, culture, heritage, and local foods. She edited the works of prominent international decision makers while at the United Nations University Press at its Tokyo headquarters, and later became the director of the press. She was also a marketing consultant to multinational corporations. Recently, she completed a Master of Arts in Gastronomy under the auspices of Le Cordon Bleu Paris and is currently working on a book about the culinary heritage of the Portuguese in Asia.

Bribed with chouriço, Portuguese cheeses, and “the best açorda you ever tasted” during an expedition to the Ironbound section of Newark, NJ, with David, Janet agreed to join Leite’s Culinaria as an editor and researcher, unearthing the kind of facts that imbue the site with erudition and maintain its reputation for wit and worldliness.

Donna Desfor
Recipe Tester Coordinator
In 2002, Donna attended the Symposium for Professional Food Writers, where she met David. At the time, Donna was a lawyer working with a private consulting firm and spending her free time traveling the world and studying food and wine. That December, she took time off to study contemporary French cuisine under Frank Zlomke, the executive chef of Bosman’s Restaurant, one of the top-rated restaurants in South Africa’s Paarl Valley. When she returned from her travels, Donna signed on as one of Leite’s Culinaria testers. In 2004, she decided to pursue food full-time.

Donna now teaches culinary classes and leads food-and-wine tastings as part of her business, There’s a Chef in My Kitchen. In addition, she hosts “Food Wednesdays” for WITF.org, Central Pennsylvania’s public media outlet and NPR affiliate, and contributes to its sister publication Central PA Magazine. She has been featured in the Harrisburg Patriot-News, Central Pennsylvania Magazine, and  many online publications. She creates recipes for articles, chefs, and cookbooks and speaks to area groups and organizations on food styling and entertaining. Having regularly appeared as CBS-TV 21’s weekend guest chef demonstrating recipes, cooking techniques, and offering tips on ingredients, Donna is planning to open a first-of-its-kind Tasting Room in Mechanicsburg, Pennsylvania, in autumn 2009, where she’ll continue to offer cooking classes, and food-and-wine tastings.

On working with Linda and Leite’s Culinaria testers, Donna says, “I feel like a kitchen voyeur. I get to become a part of everyone’s testing experience, and ultimately contribute to the success of a phenomenal food Web site.”

Rachel Seow
Associate Editor
With her childhood divided between Asia and North America, with a bit of the UK stirred in for good measure, Rachel grew up on the foods of a dozen different peoples and almost as many continents. And till this day, she couldn’t say which she’d claim as her own or which she loves best. While the foods she had access to changed as she ping-ponged about the globe, her fascination with them remained constant — from the time she was five and snuck into the kitchen in the middle of the night because she couldn’t wait to try out a recipe from her Care Bears cookbook to the time she was twenty-five and saw raw Japanese mountain potato going through a grater and liquefying into a snowy mass. And her fascination with food remains with her today.

Amanda Duffy
Illustrator
LoserGirl is the alter ego of Toronto-based illustrator and jumped-up pantry girl Amanda Duffy. Amanda’s misanthropy and pseudo-intellectual grounding infuse her work with both humor and quiet melancholy. The collectors of her paintings are unsure whether to laugh or burst into tears, which Amanda considers to be a good thing. Over the years, she’s received many lovely gifts from fans, but the one she’s still waiting for is a ballotine of MarieBelle truffles. Some of her many illustration clients include Playboy, Forbes, the Wall Street Journal, Slate, TV Guide, Ms, Christianity Today, Out (How’s that for a contradiction?), Saveur, and Gourmet. LoserGirl (and Amanda) invites you to view her self-titled comic strip appearing at amandaduffy.com.