Nyleve Baar

I was born in New York City and, after receiving a fine arts degree from Pratt Institute, I fled the city and ended up about a million miles north to Canada - living in the forest where there was nothing to do but cook. I became quite good at it. But even the forest becomes boring after a while - hard to believe, I know, what with bears and poison ivy and all. So I started to write. About cooking, of course. Because I didn't want to write about bears and poison ivy. Even though I do - but not often.

But I digress. We moved south, a little. I got jobs - weird ones, including working for a banquet hall where I was in charge of making jello salads. I became quite good at that too. But it doesn't take very long for jello to become boring - even with multicolour layers and pineapple chunks in it.

So I had kids and started to write magazine articles and books. This hasn't become boring yet. I still have kids and I still write. About food mostly. And I still cook. And I'm still pretty good at it.

The kids have turned out to be darn good cooks too, but my husband can't cook his way out of a paper bag. You can't win them all, I guess.