03 Feb

Tanya Pietrosante

Tanya PietrosanteTanya Pietrosante began Spiked Cakes in August 2010. With a background in accounting and business and after becoming a stay at home mom, her desire to be back in the business world reemerged.

Something kept telling her she needed to be on her own. Tanya wanted to LOVE what she was to do. Having known she loved good food, good drink, and good people was obvious but she never thought a career could come of it.

Tanya began working at Natali Vineyards in 2008 by supplying the Vineyard with a fruit called Beach Plums that she and her husband grow. The relationship blossomed and she realized her love for the atmosphere of the Vineyard. After that she began working in the tasting room and working events.

In her mind, she knew that she wanted to do this every day in some aspect. She couldn’t find her niche until one day someone asked why standard wines aren’t normally paired with desserts, which got her thinking. She decided to combine wine and dessert in a different way, hence how Spiked Cakes began.

Even though she wasn’t a baker, as soon as she made her first batch of spiked cupcakes the ideas wouldn’t stop coming. She was making cocktails and having fun. By October of 2010 word was out and people were loving it.

There has been bumps in the road but she is determined to succeed because of her love and passion, and with so advernturous many ideas, Tanya is not only a Thirsty Girl, but has found her calling.

Email Tanya: spikedcakes@gmail.com

Follow Tanya at http://twitter.com/SpikedCakes

On the web: http://www.relylocal.com/newjersey/cape-may-county/spiked-cakes

27 Jan

Summer Whitford

Summer Whitford, aka the “Food and Wine Diva,” is the author of Join Us At The Embassy, a book about cuisine and culture from ten countries as seen through the eyes of their ambassadors in Washington, DC. Written as a cultural guide and culinary travelogue, Join Us At The Embassy is the ultimate guide to the customs, traditions, and foodways of each country.

Summer and her book have been featured on local and national television and radio including Fox’s Strategy Room, ESPN’s The Food Dude, and CNN’s The Buzz, in addition to her appearances at public and private food, wine, and book events.

Not only an author, Whitford is a professional chef/pastry chef, writer, and food and wine educator. She is the President of Chez Vous Productions, Inc., a food specialty and lifestyle company. With over twenty years in the business, Summer Whitford has extensive experience as a chef/caterer, writer of books, articles, newsletters, and television programming on food, wine, culture, and travel.

Most importantly, she’s a Thirsty Girl because, as the “Food and Wine Diva” she pours her heart and soul into anything that has to do with the good things in life — food, wine, friends, and traveling to new places — what she calls “life’s tasty bits.” That’s just what a Thirsty Girl is all about. Her motto: Dine Well. Live Fully. Travel Often.

Summer has always had an insatiable curiosity about people, history, gardening, geography, and food and cherish every sight, smell, sound, and emotion. In the long run this has made her travels more enriching, her cooking more complex, and her writing more intuitive. The act of breaking bread is a fundamental, universal human activity that’s simple and easy to relate to, no matter what one’s religious, political, cultural, ethnic, or tribal traditions may be. Learning about another country’s cuisine can help us better understand what values are important to its people and how they cook, eat, love, and live their lives.

This epiphany compelled her to study international affairs in college and then eventually become a chef. Along the way, she researched and cooked a range of international cuisines, taught herself pastries, cake decorating, and bread baking, and worked with some of the best French, Italian, and international chefs in St. Louis, Missouri and Washington, DC.

But this wasn’t enough. She wanted to be her own boss and create her own dishes. Summer and her husband launched Chez Vous, a catering and lifestyle company that they successfully ran for 15 years. Their clients ranged from the Speaker of the House, to ambassadors, movie production companies, corporations, etc. At the same time, she began teaching food and wine to consumers and the trade, dabbled in wine list consulting, and even worked in wine retail. And then the writing bug took hold and she got the chance to write an entire series of food and travel shows for the Discovery Channel, which was the beginning of her writing career.

Ever a Thirsty Girl, she just can’t tear herself away from food and drink and writing. These days you can usually find Summer working on her blog, Delicious Prose, cooking up something new, or working on a couple of book projects.

If you want to get in touch with Summer, you can reach her at: foodandwinediva@usa.net

Twitter: @foodandwinediva

Facebook: http://profile.to/foodandwinediva/

http://foodandwinediva.com/blog/

http://foodandwinediva.com/blog/?page_id=398

20 Jan

Cathy Huyghe

Cathy Huyghe is the founder of 365daysofwine.com, a website about drinking wine every day in the Boston area and Red White Boston, a for-profit marketing service that designs and promotes wine events in the Boston area.

Cathy’s first restaurant gig was at Chez Panisse in Berkeley, when she literally knocked on the kitchen’s back door and asked if she could work there. She also has worked for Jean-Pierre Vigato in Paris (at Natachef bistro and at his two-star restaurant, Apicius) and for Thomas Keller at Bouchon in Las Vegas. She studied at La Varenne École de Cuisine in Burgundy, France; she completed the Wine Studies program at Boston University; and she received Advanced Certification from WSET (Wine and Spirits Education Trust), where she continues her wine studies.

Cathy’s writing — about wine, food, and travel — has appeared on NBC’s Feast, the BBC’s The World, WGBH public broadcasting, GlobalPost.com, Grist.org, QRW: Quarterly Review of Wines, Wine Enthusiast, Sommelier Journal, Boston magazine, The Boston Globe, The Washington Post, Edible Boston, and on Nevada Public Radio.

Cathy received a master’s degree from the Graduate School of Design at Harvard in 2004 and also completed the journalism program at Harvard. She received a master’s degree in comparative literature from the City University of New York in 1998 and a bachelor’s degree from Bucknell University in 1995.

In April 2008 she founded the Harvard Alumni in Wine and Food special interest group, which provides educational and networking services to the Harvard community, alumni, and current students.

Connect with Cathy and Red White Boston at:

Twitter: @redwhiteboston

Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=308668451222

Email: huyghe@post.harvard.edu or cathy@well.com

Also, be sure to check out the recent blog post by Cathy on TG Crave blog about the marriage of wine and technology.(http://www.thirstygirl.com/index.php/crave/article/wine-and-technology-in-boston-more-incubator-than-youve-ever-imagined)

11 Nov

Marlo Scott

Marlo ScottHow does a gal from southern Indiana who grew up on fried bologna and Velveeta wind up with an artisan cupcake, beer & wine bar in the West Village and the star of Chase Bank’s national ad campaign for Ink, its small business credit card? It took a long and twisted trip through the corporate jungle and getting laid off from her job in publishing in 2007 for Owner Marlo Scott to transform her passion for cupcakes, adventure and foreign travel into Sweet Revenge®. Her revenge on the corporate world is Oh So SWEET!

Since opening in July 2008, Marlo’s world-inspired cupcake, beer & wine bar has garnered press and accolades. This year, Chase has chosen Marlo to be the face of Ink, its small business credit card, in its national TV, print, online and radio ad campaign. The campaign launched 6 days before her 2nd year anniversary in business. In September, Marlo showcased her cupcake, wine and beer pairings on the TODAY show with Kathie Lee and Hoda. She appeared on PBS’s Nightly Business Report, on BBC Tv and in Black Book Magazine. NY Daily News documented her journey in “Cupcakes, Wine, Stardom”, and Portfolio.com profiled Marlo in “Chasing Sweet Revenge®”. Sweet Revenge® will be the backdrop for a Millionaire Matchmaker episode in late November. In December, Marlo will be on The Cooking Channel’s show “Unique Eats”. NY Magazine distinguished Sweet Revenge® with its Critic’s Pick this year.

In 2009, Marlo appeared on Martha Stewart, Fox5, PBS with Mike Colameco, and NBC Nonstop. Time Out NY Magazine voted Sweet Revenge® in its Top Blind Date Spots List and gave it a prestigious 2009 Eat Out Award, after awarding it the Critic’s Pick and Top 100 List distinction in 2008. Marlo has spoken on 101.9 RXP’s The Rock Show and was featured in Bon Appetit, NYMag.com, New York Metro, A.M. New York, and CupcakesTakeTheCake, among others. New York City’s Department of Small Business Services awarded Marlo with an NYC Business Solutions Success Story in 2008, only 5 months after she opened.

Marlo’s passion is that of a true Thirsty Girl, living life to the fullest and following one’s passion. She recently debuted weekend brunch. Later this month she is launching a Sweet Revenge® branded apparel line which will be available on her website, www.SweetRevengeNYC.com. Next year she’s looking forward to offering wedding cakes.

Every day Marlo is truly living the dream and a true example of a Thirsty Girl.

Follow Marlo on Twitter @SweetRevengeNYC

Join Sweet Revenge on Facebook

Sweet Revenge Blog: http://www.SweetRevengeNYC.com/blog

30 Sep

Julie Gosterman

Julie GrostermanNative New Yorker Julie Brosterman, CEO of Women & Wine (http://womenwine.com/), got the “wine bug” working at Windows on the World just after college. She had the opportunity to ‘pour’ for Kevin Zraly’s (who had just launched “Windows on the World Wine School”) and explore food and wine pairings at Cellar in the Sky Restaurant.

Brosterman relocated to Los Angeles and enjoyed a successful career in the mortgage/real estate services industry including consulting to companies eager to move their bricks and mortar platforms to the internet.

She began Women & Wine when she began realizing that most women shopped for wine in supermarkets or box stores, where little information was provided. Hence where she came up with her site. Women are like “sponges” and love sharing stories about and enjoying wine. The Women & Wine site invites users to post their experiences. Host of Women & Wine Radio on Saturday a.m., intimate conversations with people who are passionate about wine and food and owner of Wine Valet at Two Rodeo Drive. Brosterman consults to companies seeking to create content and experiences to connect with the niche of lovers of wine, food and travel. She also consults on social media strategy and has created a large community on Facebook with almost 9,000 people and 6,300 on Twitter.

You can connect with Julie on Twitter at http://twitter.com/womenwine and on Facebook at http://facebook.com/womenwine.

On the web at:

http://womenwine.com

http://blogtalkradio.com/womenwine

http://wine-valet.com/

22 Jul

Debbie Gold

Talk about following your passion..meet this week’s Thirsty Girl Thursday honoree, Chef Debbie Gold. Debbie laughs when she talks about the fact that she is the only person in her family passionate about food and cooking. While still in high school, the Chicago native surprised her parents, when, unbeknownst to them, she subscribed to Bon Appetit and began creating impressive meals for the family.

Debbie’s culinary career is trés- impressive, as are the numerous awards she’s received. A James Beard award winner and four-time nominee, Debbie has led Kansas City’s The American Restaurant to national recognition as its executive chef. Initially studying restaurant management at the University of Illinois, Debbie received her professional culinary training at L’Ecole Hoteliere de Tain L’Hermitage in France. After apprenticing for two years at Michelin-starred restaurants across that country, she returned to Chicago to hold positions at such reputable venues as Charlie Trotter’s, Everest, and Mirador.

She recently returned to The American Restaurant as the executive chef to once more lead the locale to a host of honors, including consistent AAA Four Diamond and Mobil Travel Guide Four Star ratings 

She also appeared in this season’s Top Chef Masters where she was up against some of the biggest names in the restaurant world. Fun stuff. So TG’s please raise your virtual glasses to toast Chef Debbie Gold, long may she rule in her kitchen. Cheers!