Ask Sara Moulton how it all began and she'll tell you...
"I've always liked to eat." This decidedly prosaic reality is what turned her
in the direction of cooking school after graduating from the University of
Michigan with no particular major in 1974. And, indeed, it was at the Culinary
Institute of America that Sara found herself. She graduated with highest honors
in 1977 and commenced working in restaurants immediately, first in Boston and
then in New York, taking time off only to apply herself to a postgraduate
stagaire with a master chef in Chartres, France in 1979.
Sara's restaurant experience peaked with a stint as sous chef at La Tulipe in
New York in the early Eighties. It was also during this period that Sara
co-founded the New York Women's Culinary Alliance, an organization devoted to
creating opportunities for women in the culinary field, which was marked by the
usual sexist roadblocks. In the interest of starting a family, Sara left
restaurant work in 1983. She worked for a while as an instructor at Peter
Kump's New York Cooking School, where she discovered her love of teaching, an
interest that would give focus to her subsequent work on television. In 1984
Sara took a job in the test kitchen at Gourmet magazine. Four years later she
became the magazine's executive chef, a position she holds to this day.
Naturally energetic and inclined to juggle more than one job at a time, Sara
began working behind the scenes on public television's Julia Child and More
Company in 1979. Her friendship with Julia led eventually to Sara's gig as
executive chef at ABC-TV's "Good Morning America," a behind-the-scenes position
that turned into an on-air role as the morning show's food correspondent in
March of 1997. By then Sara had also begun working as the host of "Cooking
Live," her own show on The Food Network. After six years and some 1200 shows,
Cooking Live ended its run on March 31. Her new show, Sara's Secrets, began the
next day.
Sara's first cookbook, Sara Moulton Cooks at Home, was published by Broadway
Books on October 15, 2002. The book embodies Sara's mission as both author and
television host: to counter America's disastrous love affair with fast food by
encouraging everyone to cook delicious and healthy food at home and to dine
with family and friends.
Sara lives in New York City with her husband Bill and their two children, Ruth
and Sam.
