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An Ivy League-educated lawyer turned food writer, I bring passion, a sharp intellect and attention to detail to my globally-inspired Jewish and Mediterranean cuisine. While I am always guided by the traditions of both Ashkenazi and Sephardic cooking, I am willing to break the rules in search of the best flavor — for example, making Olive Oil Ice Cream instead of fried doughnuts for Hanukah or lightening up my grandmother’s kreplach recipe with chicken instead of brisket. My travels and time living in Paris inspired my lifelong exploration of Jewish foodways around the globe and today translates into developing modern, from-scratch recipes that appeal to contemporary palates.

Among my fondest childhood memories are the elaborate dinners prepared by my grandmother for the Jewish holidays—meals that, in an interfaith family, were short on religion but long on mouth-watering Ashkenazi food. A year spent as a student in Paris living with a Sephardic family opened my eyes to the wider world of Jewish cuisine—making both travel and building community through food a priority in my work and life.

When I am able, I love to travel in search of extraordinary food. Some of my favorite finds include sabich on the streets of Tel Aviv, fry jacks at an open-air restaurant in Belize,  authentic Chinese soup dumplings in a suburban Vancouver mall food court, beef heart anticuchos on a Peruvian horse ranch, trout poached in beeswax at a Michelin-starred restaurant in Vienna, and reindeer with cloudberries at a food hall in Stockholm.

At home in Chicago, my culinary and DIY adventures are inspired by the city’s diverse neighborhoods, its global food markets and the bounty of Midwestern farms — whether I am feeding my family of four, hosting a Yom Kippur breakfast for twenty or developing a new recipe for an assignment. My recipes and writing have appeared in such print and online outlets as Midwest Living, Allrecipes magazine, Plate, Eater Chicago, Taste, The Nosher and more.

Like so many of you, I am a working parent who needs to feed my family every single day and I know how challenging that can be. Thus, my most recent cookbooks have focused on two beloved kitchen appliances that have revolutionized home cooking: the air fryer and the electric pressure cooker, such as an Instant Pot™. In my newest release, Instantly Mediterranean (Tiller Press 2021), you willl find 100 authentic, Mediterranean recipes adapted specifically for the Instant Pot™ and air fryer. My best-selling book Epic Air Fryer (Harvard Common Press 2019), changed everyone’s idea of what you can cook in air fryer.

When my daughter was diagnosed with multiple food allergies as a baby, I began preparing much of my family’s food from scratch. This experience lead to a deep dive into the world of canning and preserving. Today, I am a nationally recognized expert on canning and fermentation and teaches classes and workshops all over the country. My 2017 cookbook, The Joys of Jewish Preserving (Harvard Common Press) marries my passion for Jewish cuisine with my knowledge of home food preservation. The recipes in The Joys of Jewish Preserving include both Ashkenazi and Sephardic-inspired flavors and update traditional Jewish preserving for contemporary palates.

Inspired by all the accomplished home cooks in my life, from my grandmother to my French host family, I aspire to create a greater sense of community through cooking and the sharing of food. With my 2016 cookbook Food Swap: Specialty Recipes for Bartering, Sharing & Giving (Storey), I gave home cooks, bakers and gardeners the tools to trade and barter their homemade and homegrown foods, form friendships, and share skills. In my culinary classes and demonstrations, I turn a roomful of food lovers into an engaged community even if only for a few hours.

I want food to taste as good as it possibly can. If I seek out local, seasonal produce at the farmers’ market, it is because nothing is more delicious than a perfect, ripe peach or sweet Illinois corn picked that morning. If I take the time to make something from scratch—and advise you to do the same—it is because the results are worth the effort. Like the former lawyer I am, I always makes a compelling case for why you should follow my advice in the kitchen. Why buy the expensive olive oil? Why make your own jam? Why serve something new this Passover? I am here to tell you.

Whatever brought you “west of the loop,” my little Chicago-area inside joke, I hope that you find something interesting here.  I would love to hear what you think.

Contact me

• You can email me at emily@westoftheloop.com
• Hear my thoughts about pop culture on Twitter: http://twitter.com/westoftheloop
• Like West of the Loop on Facebook.
• See my food photography on Instagram
• Check out what is inspiring me on Pinterest.