Bios
Todd M. Johns (Editor) - Bio
My love for cooking was inherited by my maternal grandmother. My family roots run deep in the farm fields and plains of the Midwest. Our meals were earthy, hardy, and filled with love. Though I’m now a corporate professional living in the suburbs of Kansas City, Missouri, those same traditions are present in my food today.
The Pork Pullin Plowboys competition BBQ team was co-founded by my brother-in-law and I in 2002. We’ve enjoyed success as competitors with several top ten finishes, many top 5 category finishes, several blue ribbons, two Reserve Grand Championships and a Grand Championship. Plowboys Foods, LLC, a concession and catering company, was established in 2007. In 2007, our competition BBQ team was named the Missouri Show Me State Champion.
I am a member of the Kansas City BBQ Society, a KCBS certified BBQ judge, and the producer of PlowboysBBQ.com.
Robert Fernandez - Bio
I am a fire obsessed guy living in Brooklyn, New York, with a dream of producing award winning, competition busting, real barbeque. I’ve been playing with fire since I was a little kid living in the wilds of Long Island. I mastered the technique of campfire building when I was in the Boy Scouts. I loved cooking over the open fire and using strange contraptions like Dutch ovens and cast iron skillets. As I grew older I discovered the worlds of grilling and barbecue. It’s become my obsession. There’s nothing as relaxing to me as sitting and watching a fire. With Matt, I’ve organized grilling contests, barbecue cooking classes and community bbq’s in New York City. I am the editor of Get Your Grill On and maintain a blog about my adventures in cooking called WhiteTrash BBQ.
Susan Filson - Bio
Susan is a professional musician, amateur chef, aspiring writer, wife, mother, daughter and sister, who used to be a lawyer in a previous life. She lives on the beautiful Gulf Coast of Florida with her handsome husband and lovely teen-aged daughter.
Her passion for food comes from a long line of wonderful and creative Italian home cooks who didn’t always have a lot, but knew how to make a lot out of what they had. Susan’s greatest inspiration was her father, an avid gardener, who grew almost all of the fruits, vegetables and herbs for her family’s table. He taught her the value of using only the freshest ingredients available, whenever possible. He advocated “going local” before it became the popular thing to do.As a busy working mom, Susan favors recipes that are healthy, delicious and easy to prepare. Never one to back down from a challenge, she also loves to compose “edible symphonies” in her kitchen, when time permits.
In addition to writing for The Well Fed Network, Susan can also be found cooking and writing for her blog, Sticky, Gooey, Creamy, Chewy.
Hal J. - Bio
A true lover of all things food, Hal has been experimenting in the kitchen since he was a child. As a result, while never formally trained, he feels as comfortable in the kitchen with a potato ricer as he does behind a desk with an adding machine, as an accountant in his other life. In fact, since they’ve been together, his wife has been amazed at what she says is his ability to throw things in a pot and call it dinner. He doesn’t think he’s that good; he is just often inspired by the food he tries when out with friends or from (voraciously) reading cookbooks, food magazines, and blogs.
After moving recently to support his grad-school going wife, Hal has found himself cooking more and more because eating out can be really expensive. He also enjoys writing, and showing people that cooking is not as scary as it can seem. Armed with a well stocked pantry and a camera, he started “The Common Culinarian” in November 2007 to document his trials in the kitchen and to show the everyone they can, in fact, cook, if they are willing to try.
Faith Kramer - Bio
Faith Kramer finds herself reading about food sometimes even more often than cooking it. “After all,” she says “it’s hard to grill chicken in bed.” In addition to the many American food magazines she reads, Faith also enjoys “translating” into American some of the best food magazines of England and Australia. She’s been even known to try recipes from Spanish, Mexican and French food magazines. The French ones are particularly challenging since she doesn’t know any French. Good thing the language of food is universal.
When she is not reading about cooking food, she is writing about it in her blog, Blog Appetit, and as a contributor to other Well Fed Network sites, including Sugar Savvy.
Curt McAdams - Bio
I have always enjoyed cooking, which I learned from my mom. It wasn’t until I discovered natural lump charcoal that my grilling passion was discovered, and now I can’t do enough on the grill or the smoker.
Other than outdoor cooking, I love wines and cooking all kinds of things. I’m learning to make artisanal breads and have started teaching cooking classes. One of the great things about the blogging world is how much people are willing to share, which I also try to do on my blog, Bucky’s Barbecue and Bread, and now on the Well Fed Network.
Wayne Nelson - Bio
Food satisfies more than just my appetite, it allows me to be creative, connect with people and have a good time to boot. I believe that by understanding the fundamentals and learning technique, anyone can tackle almost any recipe and have fun doing it. Like most folks, many of my cooking basics were picked up from home, both in the kitchen and by hanging around the backyard barbecue pit. Thirty years later I’m still learning and have never lost my passion for good food cooked at home. I am an avid barbequer and maintain a recipe blog, Playing with Fire and Smoke, where I share some of the methods I use for cooking over fire. I also enjoy home canning, curing & smoking of meats and sausage making.
Cate O’Malley - Bio
For as long as I can remember, I have loved writing and yearned to be a freelance journalist when I grew up. When I moved out on my own for the first time, I discovered a second passion … cooking. Now, many years later, I still have a love for both and started my site, Sweetnicks, in an effort to combine them. I have a slight, ahem, obsession with cookbooks, food/cooking magazines, and, well, anything related to food. My site’s name comes from my 5-year-old son, Nicholas, who loves to help me in the kitchen almost as much as he loves Dora, Spiderman and his girlfriend.
Erin and Al Rosas - Bio
Al and Erin Rosas raise all grass fed beef on their certified organic cattle farm located in Marion County, Florida. The Rosas also own and operate a specialty and organic food store.
Erin Rosas is a medical research specialist with research concentrated in the area of the cellular and physiological reaction to growth hormones and chemicals in humans. She is a Board Member of The Sturge-Weber Foundation and Medical Research Director of The KT Foundation.
The Rosas’ consult nationally as organic industry specialists and are the authors of Pragmatic Organics and The 80% Solution.
The Rosas live and work in Florida with their children. They also publish a monthly e-magazine on eating pragmatic organically, The Organic Chef Monthly, and appear regularly at organic trade shows, seminars and on radio educating families about the benefits or organic and sustainable living.
Erin Rosas was awarded the Organic Style Magazine and Stonyfield Farms Woman of the Year. Al Rosas won the Walt Drigger’s Environmentalist of the Year, Cordon D’Or Culinary Entrepreneur of the Year and Minority Business of the Year.
Kayenne So - Bio
I’m a Chinese woman born in the Philippines and currently living in Manila. I work as a freelance food stylist and I’m passionate about the culinary arts. I also operate a home-based baking and catering business. My blog, Pride and Prejudice, covers my everyday life from travel to family to food.
Christine W.
Over 25 years ago, Christine’s family escaped the Communist regime of Viet Nam and came to the United States, settling in Orange County, California. There, she grew up watching her mother make wonderful meals on a daily basis, despite working long hours and caring for her husband and three little children. From a young age, Christine found inspiration in her mother’s ability to combine available ingredients with Asian technique to make authentic Vietnamese food that was quick, healthy and delicious. And, according to Christine, her mother was always able to get dinner on the t able in less than 30 minutes — long before it became trendy to do so.
While studying Political Science in college, she found herself reading Larousse and Pepin more often than Machiavelli and de Tocqueville. A semester studying abroad in the northwest of France sealed the deal. From there on, her pursuit in life has been to share with others the beautiful and extraordinary food of Viet Nam and Southeast Asia. Her blog, HolyBasil, is a testament to that.
Larry Gaian
I love to cook. My passion is BBQ but I know my around the kitchen pretty well. I was the stereotypical “latch key” kid growing up in the 60’s and early 70’s so I learned to cook at a young age. And ever since have enjoyed messing around in the kitchen.
A recently remodeled kitchen and all the new appliances has given me a renewed interest in cooking. When I’m not Qing in the backyard I’m trying new spices and sauces in hope of coming up with something interesting and unusual for the family.
In my “real” life I am the Director of Training for a large office equipment company in Northern California. My wife and I are recent “empty nesters” and enjoy visiting new restaurants and going through various grocery stores looking for new spices and other things to try out in our new kitchen.
You can read about my BBQ experiences on my blog, The BBQ Grail.
Carol Kicinski
I am an event planner, a gluten-free cook, a food writer and photographer and the hostess of the gluten-free blog Simply…Gluten-free at www.simplygluten-free.blogspot.com.
I started cooking out of self preservation. My mother passed away when I was 13 and between my father, sisters and I the best we could do for dinner was spaghetti out of a box and take home Chinese. I taught my self to cook by reading cook books, watching cooking shows on television and annoying the heck out of really great cooks with my incessant questions.
What started as a necessity soon turned into a passion. I loved to cook, and I really loved to eat! I used to love gluten but it didn’t like me back so we broke up.
I decided to look at the world of food not in terms of what I could no longer eat but in terms of abundance. Now I celebrate the abundant world of gluten free living.
