About

Welcome to The Artful Gourmet! I’m Kristen Hess, serious home cook, food writer, stylist and photographer, recipe developer and on-camera Chef talent in NYC. I have worked in advertising and design for a majority of my career but have always loved food and cooking from my earliest days in my Mom’s and Grandmother’s kitchens. I started experimenting with cooking once I moved to Atlanta after college, and then again when I moved to Melbourne, Australia for 2 years to study my Masters degree and learned to cook different recipes and cuisines in those cultures and regions.

But I didn’t really get serious about cooking until I moved to NYC and started taking a cooking and technique classes at The Institute of Culinary Education…French, Italian, Spanish, Tuscan, Provencal, Thai, Malaysian, Techniques of Fine Cooking and Italian Cooking, Healthy Cooking - you name it, I took it; fell in love with food and decided this was a serious affair and never looked back.

I fell into my food media career as a natural extension of my culinary training and creative background, and started freelance writing, styling and photography, and more recently, started doing freelance on-camera Chef work for a series of online culinary videos for AllRecipes.com. I’ve studied food writing at Parsons New School, Gotham Writers/NY Times Knowledge Network (with Julia Moskin and Evan Rail) and food photography and styling at the International Center of Photography and The Institute of Culinary Education and Perfect Picture School of Photography.

I’ve also studied styling and photography with many seasoned industry professionals: Laurie Knoop, Jamie Tiampo, James Peterson, Lisa Golden-Schroeder, Lara Ferroni and Ron Goldman and Beatrice Peltre of La Tartine Gourmande. I do food writing for Downtown Magazine New York, and also contribute recipes and articles for KitchenAid, Nespresso, Buitoni, The National Pork Board, OpenSky.com,  eDiningNews.com, TavernDirect.com, Technorati.com, Suite101.com, Nearsay.com and Examiner.com.

The Artful Gourmet is the product of plenty of late nights of planning and dreaming, reading and writing, cooking and eating, and styling and shooting. My purpose is to celebrate the art of food and cooking  through colorful stories, recipes, styling and photography - thus the name, The Artful Gourmet.

There’s so much beauty in a bright red raspberry or a bright green basil leaf. A dark chocolate brown cacao bean. A luscious orange tangerine. And this is what color can do - inspire, lift us up, ignite imagination and creativity, set a mood - not only in our recipes and on our plates, but in our environments, our homes, our lifestyles, and all around us. Colorful food and creative cooking is an art form, an expression, beauty.

I’ll be dedicating myself to updating content weekly, with stories and photos around food and cooking, recipes and cooking techniques, restaurant reviews, chef and local artisan interviews, stories on foodie neighborhoods, local markets and favorite food finds in New York City and other places I have lived in and traveled to around the world that have been a source of inspiration to me. I hope to be that for others by sharing my own culinary experiences, recipes and stories with people as passionate about food as I am.

I’m am proud to be a part of an amazing food community and look forward to sharing my recipes, stories and photography with you all – Bon Appetit!

Website: http://theartfulgourmet.com

Food Styling + Photography portfolio: www.kristenhess.com

Twitter: @artfulgourmet
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Pinterest: artfulgourmet