Everyone loves a woman who COOKS!

Nigella Lawson

She’s sexy, she’s curvy, she’s even flirtatious when she’s talking about food. She’s basically a dream come true. Nigella isn’t a trained chef, but she’s a woman who KNOWS and LOVES food and therefor make you know and love it too.

Giada De Laurentiis

Everyone knows Giada. She’s on our televisions, she’s in our kitchens and thank GOD. I love her recipes. She’s got the looks from her mother who was an famous Italian actress and she’s got the skills- i mean, of course her good is amazing- SHE’S ITALIAN.

Bethenny Frankel

This Real Housewife of New York City is the super witty, hysterical, ball busting natural food chef who so famously invented the Skinny Girl Margarita. Which is delicious. She attended the Natural Gourmet Cooking Institute in New York. After she graduated, she formed a company which provides wheat-, egg-, and dairy-free baked goods, meals for private clients, and a custom-meal delivery service. Her clients include Michael J. Fox, Brooke Hogan, Alicia Silverstone, and Paris Hilton…etc.

She’s the best.

Cat Cora

Cat is a woman who does it all, you may have seen her on Iron Chef cooking against some of the amazing chefs in the biz, many of them men, and generally kicking ass. She’s the exectuive chef at Bon Appetit, a magazine solely for foodies and a food contributer to ModernMom.com….among MANY other things. Incredible.

Alex Guarnaschelli

Alex isn’t just a pretty face, she’s one hard working chef who’s worked her way through France at some of the Michelin starred restaurants and now hosts shows on the Foodnetwork. She’s the daughter of an estimed cookbook editor, so clearly food is something she knows a thing or two about! She is the executive chef at Butter Restaurant and now teaches at the New York City’s Institute of Culinary Education.

Quite the resume.

Paula Deen

mmmmm BUTTER, that’s all I can think of when I think about Paula Deen! Paula has a really interested story, she has severe agrophobia for several years and while she was dealing with her condition, she’d saty home and cook!!! She experiemented, perfected recipes and eventually turned her cooking experience into a catering company, then later into a restaurant with her sons! She isn’t just that sweet lady on TV, she’s a business woman- with an affinity for delicious, delicious BUTTER.

Mary Sue Milliken and Susan Feniger

“For over two decades, the chefs have transformed street foods and comfort foods into critically-acclaimed cuisine, and themselves from a couple of Midwestern gringas into two of the country’s foremost authorities on the Latin kitchen. Trailblazers from the start, the classically trained culinary grads (Susan from The Culinary Institute of America and Mary Sue from Washburne Culinary Institute) met in1978 at Le Perroquet, one of Chicago’s best French restaurants. They were the first women to break into the all-male kitchen.”

They’ve opened City Cafe on Melrose and more recently opened the foodie favorite STREET in L.A. Where street foods from around the world are served up with a twist.

Nancy Silverton

Like Julia Child, Nancy also trained at Le Cordon Bleu and is now a famous chef and baker. She has been awarded such accolades as the “James Beard Best Pastry Chef of the Year” and the "Bon Appétit Best of Food & Entertaining, “Food Artisan” in 1999. She’s a Mother of three and owns two restaurants Pizzeria Mozza and Osteria Mozza. Two of my favorites in LA!

Traci Des Jardins

s an American chef and restaurateur who co-owns Jardinière, a French fine-dining restaurant in the Hayes Valley neighborhood in San Francisco, California; is managing chef of Acme Chophouse, a steakhouse serving grass-fed beef near AT&T Park, and is the chef and owner of Mijita, an organic taquería located in the Ferry Building.¹ In the end of 2009 Des Jardins will be opening Manzanita in the Ritz-Carlton Highlands, Lake Tahoe.

Gabrielle Hamilton

Gabrielle isn’t just a cook- she’s a writer too. A great one. Hamilton has been published in The New York Times, GQ and others. Among her literary talents she also owns the NYC restaurant Prune, where the foodies flock.

Ingrid Hoffman

Gotta love a spicy Latin girl!

After hosting a cooking segment on a Miami-area TV show in 2002, Hoffmann was offered a biweekly segment on the Spanish-language morning show Despierta America. Her own show, Delicioso, launched on DirecTV Para Todos in 2005 and she was subsequently picked up. The Food Network contacted her the day after her March 2006 appearance on Martha Stewart. Simply Delicioso debuted on the Food Network in July 2007.

Michelle Bernstein

Michelle could easily have her own show on the Food Network, but instead she’s stuck to the cooking! She owns her own restaurant with hubby in Miami and has been seen on Martha Stewart, Today and Top Chef.

Jody Adams

Mother of two. Restaurant owner. In the biz for 15+ years. I mean, come on- super woman?!

Julia Child

OBVIOUSLY, Julia Child has inspired women cooks/chefs and now television personalities, but even more so she’s inspired at-home cooks who are just like us! With the movie Julie & Julia in theaters she’s getting even more attention, I went out and bought her book Mastering the Art of French Cooking! Let’s see if I can!

Padma Lakshmi

She’s not just the SUPER SMOKIN’ host on Top Chef, with a killer body- she’s a cook too! Her first cookbook Easy Exotic was awarded Best First Book at the 1999 World Cookbook Awards at Versailles. She was host of the Food Network series, Padma’s Passport, which is part of the larger series Melting Pot, in 2001. She has also been a guest host on parts of the British culinary tourism show Planet Food, hosting the segments on India and Spain. Her second cookbook Tangy, Tart, Hot and Sweet was released October 2, 2007

Alice Waters

an American chef and co-owner of Chez Panisse, the original “California Cuisine” restaurant in Berkeley, California, as well as the informal Café Fanny in West Berkeley. The best part is she’s a major supporter of fresh, local ingredients. Go Alice.

Anita Lo

Anita Lo is the chef and owner of the successful New York restaurant Annisa and serves as consulting chef for Rickshaw Dumpling Bar. While earning a degree in French at Columbia University, she studied at Reid Hall – Columbia’s French language institute in Paris and decided to return to Paris to study cooking. She received her degree at the prestigious Ecole Ritz-Escoffier. She’s smart, she’s driven and she’s killer in the kitchen.

April Bloomfield

If you’ve been to New York and haven’t been to the foodie heaven The Spotted Pig, you must go. April Bloomfield is the chef and she’s so incredible you may even try Marrow…just sayin’.

Rachel Ray

I’ve got to say, Rachel Ray has saved my life many a night when I didn’t have many ingerdients and wanted to whip up something fast and delicious. She’s made women AND men, all over the country happy with her 30-minute meals! As a good Italian girl she learned most of her skills from her family!!! That’s my girl!

Katie Lee Joel

Yes, Billy Joel’s wife (or former wife, hm- did they follow through with that divorce?) Known as the first host of Top Chef, Katie is actually a cook herself with her own cookbook The Comfort Table.

Sunny Anderson

The Foodnetwork personality went from joining the Air Force to hosting a Military radio show in Korea and then, to the foodnetwork! Not too shabby. She was also the owner of Sunny’s Delicious Dishes, a catering company based in Jersey City, New Jersey. In 2006 and 2007 she served as Food & Lifestyle Editor for Hip Hop Weekly magazine.

multitalented lady!

Nancy Oakes

In 2001 Chef Nancy Oakes garnered a tremendous and much-deserved James Beard Foundation Award, for “Best Chef in California.” Pretty incredible accomplishment and NOW she’s the chef at the amazing restaurant Boulevard in San Fran.

Sophie Grigson

is an English cookery writer and celebrity cef. She has followed the same path and career as her mother, Jane Grigson: her father was the poet and writer Geoffrey Grigson. Also check out her book Sophie’s Table.

Susan Spicer

Despite having gone through Hurricane Katrina and briefly having to close her restaurant Bayona, she carried on! If you love Creole, you’ll love her.

Laura Calder

Oh Canada, you make such pretty chefs! She’s best known for her work hosting the Canadian Food Network’s French Food at Home and also had cookbooks of her own.

Casey Thompson

Executive chef at Shinsei in Dallas, Casy is best known for being a finalist on Top Chef Miami. She’s not quite a celebrity chef yet, but she’s doing something and she’s wearing lipstick while doing it- which is awesome.