About Lisa

Ever since she can remember, food has played a large part in Lisa’s life. Her early childhood memories consist mainly of food: freshly-picked white corn on the cob, coated in butter and salt, hamburgers from the grill, hot chocolate topped with whipped cream, steaming cinnamon rolls dunked in cold milk, and plump raspberries plucked from thorny bushes.

Growing up in several countries (the US, Sweden and Ethiopia) fostered in Lisa a strong interest in travel and international affairs. Lisa graduated from the University of Maryland with a degree in International Relations in 1995. After her studies, Lisa worked on development projects in Africa and Asia for several years. Yet her passion and principal hobby remained food; she cooked gourmet dinners for friends and planned vacations around culinary adventures.

In 2000, Lisa started The Cookbook Café, a combined cookbook store and café together with her sister. The success of the café provided an opportunity to start writing cookbooks. Her profound passion for food is demonstrated in her best-selling, award-winning cookbooks. Together with her sister, Lisa also creates recipes and plans photo shoots for magazine assignments.

Apart from devising new recipes, Lisa also enjoys mothering daughter Lea and looks forward to experimenting in the kitchen with her. She also enjoys travelling, skiing and playing golf. If forced to select her favourite food it would be tough choice between Swedish meatballs or home made Oreos dunked in a glass of cold milk.