Julia Turshen

Julia Turshen (born 1985) is an American cookbook author, food writer, cook, and food equity advocate. She lectures on food and home cooking and has published four solo books on the subject and has contributed to many others in collaboration or as a writer. She has collaborated with Gwyneth Paltrow, Dana Cowin, and Mario Batali. Her 2020 collaboration with Hawa Hassan, ''In Bibi's Kitchen'', won the 2022 James Beard Foundation award for Best International Cookbook.

She hosts the podcast ''Keep Calm and Cook On'' and writes a monthly column in ''Food & Wine'' called The Interview. She has written for the ''New York Times'', ''Condé Nast Traveler'', ''Vogue'', and ''Bon Appétit''. She serves on the Smithsonian National Museum of American History's Kitchen Cabinet Advisory Board and is the founder of Equity At The Table (EATT), a digital directory of people of color, women, and non-binary individuals in food. She also regularly provides meals for Citizen Action of New York, which led to her 2016 appointment as developer of the organization's food team.

Early life and education

Turshen grew up with one brother in a liberal, secular New York Jewish household. Her mother was an art director and her father was a graphic designer. Turshen was interested in cookbooks from a young age. At age 13, she opened a mini restaurant in her family's home. Her maternal grandparents, refugees to the United States, owned a bread bakery in Brooklyn, which Turshen's mother grew up in. Though she never met her grandparents, Turshen believes these roots created a "hereditary, genetic" pull toward cooking within her. As her parents did not cook much, she taught herself with the help of books, Julia Child, and the Discovery Channel's ''Great Chefs'' show. Between high school and college, Turshen worked at Kneaded Bread Bakery in Port Chester, New York.

Turshen did not attend culinary school; she attended Barnard College, where she majored in English. During her time there, she interned for ''Food & Wine'' magazine, a cookbook author, and a food show television producer. She began working part-time for the producer while still in college.

Career

After college, Turshen was hired as an assistant to a writer who had been hired to write the companion book for a PBS travel show about food and cooking; the job was in Spain. When the writer left the project, Turshen was given the opportunity to write the book herself. She subsequently co-authored and collaborated on approximately ten cookbooks, and supplemented her income by working as a private chef for wealthy clients.

In 2016, Turshen released her first solo cookbook, ''Small Victories: Recipes, Advice + Hundreds of Ideas for Home Cooking Triumphs''. It was listed as one of ''The New York Times''' best cookbooks of that year, one of NPR's best cookbooks of that year, and one of the ''Boston Globe'''s best cookbooks for holiday giving.

In 2017, Turshen released ''Feed the Resistance: Recipes + Ideas for Getting Involved'', whose proceeds she donated to the ACLU. The book was a meditation on food and activism. It went on to earn Eater's Best Cookbook of 2017. ''The San Francisco Chronicle'' lauded it as one of their picks for best cookbooks of 2017 and ''The Village Voice'' included it on their list of 2017's Best Food Books for Woke Readers (and Eaters).

In 2018, Turshen's book ''Now & Again: Go-To Recipes, Inspired Menus + Endless Ideas for Reinventing Leftovers'' was nominated for a Goodreads Choice Award in the category of Best Food & Cookbooks.

In 2019, Turshen's podcast, ''Keep Calm and Cook On'', was nominated for an International Association of Culinary Professionals Award.

Lectures

Turshen has given talks or served as moderator at venues including Brooklyn's Museum of Food & Drink, the University of Michigan, New Orleans

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