CAROLE M. AMBER is a foodie and writer who adores whole, fresh and delicious food. Her background includes marketing experience at Nike, creating/selling a gourmet dining company in Chicago and an international MBA. She currently sinks her teeth into a food website called ChopSizzlePop! with her husband Troy. Together they
hunt down expert restaurant recommendations and recipes, interviews
with chefs like Jacques Pépin and Rick Bayless and behind the scenes
footage of age-old food traditions at ChopSizzlePop.com.

 

As founder of TLAstudio, TROY AMBER brings unique views of our world to life through creative photography.  With a shared love for travel and excellent food, he and his wife, Carole, launched their food blog ChopSizzlePop! in 2010 with a 10-week working farm tour in Northern Italy.  Visit ChopSizzlePop.com for exclusive chef interviews, unique food images and insider foodie scoop. Troy's commercial/editorial photography can also be viewed at TLAstudio.com.

 

JANINE AQUINO was raised in the Hudson Valley area of New York and is a fourth generation wine professional. She recently started AQUINO BARON Rare & Fine Wines, Ltd. based in Worthington, OH, which offers many services to wineries, restaurants, cooking schools and individual collectors. She sits on the board of Edible Columbus magazine. You can contact her at This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it or visit www.AQUINOBARON.com.

JENNA BRUCOLI is a graphic designer and lifestyle blogger, living and working in Columbus. She spends her days as an in-house designer for The Ohio Union, and enjoys working with Edible Columbus when she's off the clock. Her work has been featured on the web by Design Ignites Change, The Living Principles Blog, and OpenIDEO. She also received an Award of Excellence from the 2010 CSCA Creative Best awards for her senior thesis project.  Check out more at her blog, Jenna Sais Quois: http://jennasaisquois.blogspot.com/

 

JOANNIE COLNER D’ANDREA credits her passion for flavor to her years working under Jeni Britton Bauer of Jeni's Splendid Ice Creams. In her time as a Dairy Heiress, Joannie worked as a scooper, a baker, a writer for the marketing team and everything in-between. These days, Joannie is in pursuit of a career in special education. She lives in Columbus with her husband, Nick, and their house plants. Most nights, she rushes home from work to try out a new recipe with Nick.

 

MOLLY HAYS graduated from the University of Washington with two degrees, one Mellon Fellowship, and no idea when to buy a melon.  Since moving to Ohio in early 2009, Molly and her family of five have been getting to know Columbus one ice cream scoop at a time.  Molly writes about food and life at www.remedialeating.com.

Raised in a nomadic and adventurous family, CLAIRE HOPPENS called five states home and attended three colleges before earning her degree in magazine journalism from the Scripps School at Ohio University this past spring. When she isn't tending to duties as an Edible Columbus intern, Claire works as a Snowville Creamery representative and keeps up all social media for theswankyabode.com, her boyfriend's store. Claire is inspired by the city of Columbus and hopes to put down some sturdier roots here. For a while, at least!

 

  ERIC LEMAY lives in Athens, where he teaches in the Creative Writing Program at Ohio University, his alma mater.  Visit his website for more of his writing on foodie and non-foodie things alike: www.ericlemay.org.

 

MARTA MADIGAN is a Polish freelance travel and food writer who, as an editor and contributor, helped begin the Polish edition of National Geographic magazine. Of her many NG stories she covered a variety of food related topics such as Spanish tapas, French cuisine, Polish Christmas traditions and Sonoma and Napa Valley wines. After she moved from Warsaw to Atlanta, she wrote a chapter on Southern cooking for a collective book on international cuisines published in 2008 in Poland. She and her husband live in German Village where, in her kitchen, she experiments with locally grown produce and wild game. Her husband claims they live in the best restaurant in town.

NANCY MCKIBBEN has been writing and eating for years, and is happy to combine those loves with the opportunity to advocate for local food in the pages of Edible Columbus. Her novel The Chaos Protocol was a finalist for the Ohioana Book Award for Fiction in 2000, and she was the winner of the Thurber House Essay Contest in 2003. She is also a lyricist and journalist, the mother of six, and the wife of one. View her work at www.leader.com/nancymckibben; contact her at This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it .

 

KEN METER is the president of Crossroads Resource Center (Minneapolis) and wrote Ohio’s Food Systems: Farms at the Heart of It All, for the University of Toledo.

 

CATHERINE MURRAY, owner of Photo Kitchen, lover of food and photography—some might call her obsessed. Often spotted at the farmers market. Enjoys washing dishes. Spends her days creating photos good enough to eat. www.photokitchen.net 

 

 

 

 

 

 

JESSICA OPREMCAK is a freelance photographer and owner of Opremcak Photography in Columbus, Ohio. Jessica graduated from Ohio University with honors and a Bachelors of Science in visual communications and double minor in biological sciences and business administration. When she doesn't have a camera in hand, she can be found gardening, cooking, eating, writing, dancing, traveling, enjoying a glass of wine, reading, riding her bike, visiting farmers markets, exploring, and laughing. To see her portfolio visit www.opremcakphotography.com.

 

 

GENEVIEVE REINER: An attorney by day, I spend my free time cooking, baking, gardening, brewing, and enjoying Columbus' expanding food scene. I write the blog Ham Sandwich Indicted, where I share my adventures and document my experiments in the kitchen.  I'm passionate about eating local, but also fascinated by the field of molecular gastronomy.

 

 

 

My name is MADELINE SCHERER and I am almost 10½ years old. I have a big family—seven of us. Mommy, Daddy, me and I have two sisters and two brothers—all younger than me. I am homeschooled—or alternatively schooled, as my mom likes to say. I take classes all over the city! My favorite things to do are practice the piano and violin, read books and go to my Uncle Tom's farm. I absolutely love to cook and started cooking as soon as I could read recipes, at least that's what I remember. I make a great guacamole and a pretty good hummus, too. Someday I want to become a farmer and cook all foods from my farm.

CHARMAINE SUTTON is a designer with an obsession for all things food-related. With a background in magazines and architecture, she spends her days honing her skills as a marketer of architecture. As a recent transplant to Columbus, she enjoys exploring town with her husband in search of the perfect bowl of noodles.

CAROLE TOPALIAN, co-founder and vice president of Edible Communities, Inc., travels the world with a gifted and finely tuned photographer's eye. Carole's photographs bring the Edible Communities' mission to life, telling visual narratives about what local food networks look like today. Capturing the essence and purity of a single vegetable at the peak of ripeness or a pair of weathered farmer's hands, readers immediately connect with the compelling images that fill all Edible magazines. Topalian's unique ability to bring stories to life and to communicate through her photography is what allows her to excel as the publishing group's creative director.

Earlier in her career, Carole owned a Los Angeles-based multimedia company where she produced several award-winning advertising and promotional campaigns for major corporations. In the 1990s, she decided to leave the corporate world behind and study psychology at Pacific Graduate Institute. Today, Carole enjoys life in Santa Fe, New Mexico where she is an active ceramicist and gardener. Her fine art photographs have been exhibited in over 70 shows throughout the United States, Europe and Asia. Visit www.topalianphoto.com for more information. "Edible: A Celebration of Local Foods," was published by John Wiley & Sons in April 2010 and four community-based Edible Communities cookbooks are forthcoming from Sterling Publishing — all are filled with Topalian's vivid images.

TAMARA MANN TWEEL is a freelance writer and PhD candidate in American History at Columbia University. Born and raised in New York City, Tamara comes from a boisterous clan of exploratory eaters with two passions: family and food. She is excited to bring this spirit to Columbus and discover the many world traditions that are being recreated within our city. Her culinary writing has appeared in such publications as The Washington Post, Icons of American Cooking and Museum.  

 

KIT YOON was born and raised in Thailand. She came to the United States in the late '80s and has since lived in Boston, Northern California, and now, Columbus, Ohio. She is a freelance photographer and writer as well as a trained acupuncturist and reflexologist. Working as the Projects Director for Edible Columbus has helped Kit settle into her new city in the best possible ways. She lives in Bexley with her husband, two children, two chicks, and a bunny. You can also find her blogging at kityoon.blogspot.com.