Meet Michelle Greenwald

I've been an international "foodie" for as long as I can remember: from travels to Europe, the Middle East, and North Africa as a child, to family excursions on Sundays to New York City's Chinatown, Little Italy, Koreatown, and the Lower East Side, to staying with families in Spain and France on the Experiment in International Living as an International Relations major in college, to teaching graduate business school abroad as an adult, and more recently, to living in a multicultural suburb of Los Angeles, where I had friends from every continent who shared their food traditions with my family, and where I shopped with a sense of adventure in Japanese, Korean, Mexican, and Middle Eastern markets.

The role food plays in bringing families together, and as a cornerstone of culture, tradition, and the creation of many of our happiest memories, has always fascinated me. Each of us has a culinary heritage that makes us special and interesting.

In 2003, I wrote and published The Magical Melting Pot cookbook as a way to involve families in cooking together and to entice them to experience the fun and adventure of exploring different cultures. What I discovered through the process of interviewing America's most respected ethnic chefs, in each and every case, (aside from many amazing recipes), was the American dream through food. I'm happy to be able to share it with you, and to continue the adventure.