Karen is a chef, recipe developer, food stylist and cookbook author with over 25 years experience cooking, developing recipes, styling food, and entertaining guests at her table and in restaurants.
As a recipe developer, she brings a sense of creativity and beauty to her work, always focusing on both how the food will taste and how it will look when the diner first views a plate. She finds it important to feed all the senses during a dining experience.
After a career in sales and advertising, Karen began to wonder what else could feed her creative brain. She took a certificate course in culinary arts from the New York Restaurant School in Greenwich Village, New York, and later went to work for Frank Stitt, a beloved and renowned chef back home in Birmingham, Alabama, at Highlands Bar and Grill.
Later she and her then business partner opened and operated an historic 23 room inn in the western North Carolina mountains, Snowbird Mountain Lodge, where she spent 13 years delighting guests with an elegant, rustic retreat complete with original artwork, comfortable and relaxing interiors, and, of course, her culinary creations.
During the past 11 years, Karen has been developing recipes and styling food for various publications such as Food & Wine, Southern Living, Eating Well, AllRecipes, Cooking Light, Real Simple, as well as creating instructional videos for Southern Living Magazine's Tips from the Test Kitchen, featured on select television programming, and on websites.
For inquiries please email krankin67@gmail.com