According to food writer and cookbook author Judith M. Fertig, "Food tells a story that appeals to all the senses." In her newspaper and magazine articles, cookbooks, cooking classes, and special event appearances, she brings to life our shared and delectable love of food.

In copy writing and recipe development work for food corporations and commodity boards, her involvement has helped clients reap a 200 percent return on investment.

Freelancing for magazines and newspapers, Fertig’s work has appeared in Cooking Light, Vegetarian Times, Better Homes & Gardens, Saveur, Better Homes & Gardens, Mary Emmerling's Home Companion, Cooking Pleasures, Country Living, Kansas City Home Design, The New York Times, The London Sunday Times, the former Taste Magazine in London, and the James Beard Award-winning The Kansas City Star.

Fertig's professional culinary training includes La Varenne Ecole de Cuisine when it was still in Paris and the Cordon Bleu in London. She gives cooking classes across the country and has appeared nationally on radio and television.

Her newest cookbooks are Weeknight Grilling with the BBQ Queens (Harvard Common Press, Spring 2006) and The BBQ Queens’ Big Book of Barbecue (Harvard Common Press, Spring 2005), both co-authored with Karen Adler. Fish & Shellfish Grilled & Smoked, also co-authored with Adler, was named one of the best grill books of the year by the Associated Press in 2002. About All-American Desserts: 400 Star-Spangled, Razzle-Dazzle Recipes for America's Best-Loved Desserts (The Harvard Common Press, 2003), Publisher's Weekly decreed, "For the cook whose shelves are rife with books on contemporary cuisine, this book—think of it as an enhanced Betty Crocker recipe cookbook—is well worth adding to the shelf." Fertig's Prairie Home Breads (2001) was chosen as one of the 10 best cookbooks of the year by the Chicago Tribune. Prairie Home Cooking (1999) was nominated for both the IACP and James Beard Awards, the culinary equivalent of the Oscar and Golden Globe Awards in the film industry.

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