About
Jill Silverman Hough is a cookbook author, food and wine writer, recipe developer, and culinary instructor whose forte is making food and cooking simple yet special.
“A recipe doesn’t have to be complicated to be indulgent,” she says. “Sprinkle a roast chicken with lavender, substitute dried cherries for raisins in a batch of oatmeal cookies, serve grilled salmon on a bed of arugula—all these things take almost no effort, yet they’ll make your otherwise ordinary dishes taste and feel like fancy food.”
With a fresh, friendly, and encouraging voice and recipes that quickly and easily deliver casual elegance, Jill makes creativity in the kitchen and delight at the table totally accessible to home chefs.
Her cookbook, “100 Perfect Pairings: Small Plates to Enjoy with Wines You Love,” premiered in April 2010, with “100 Perfect Pairings: Main Dishes to Enjoy with Wines You Love” out in April 2011. Chock-full of delicious, easy recipes for everyday cooks, they make food and wine pairing fun, friendly, and absolutely unintimidating. Other book projects include developing the recipes for “Skinny Bitch in the Kitch,” a New York Times best seller, and contributing to Weight Watchers “Shortcuts.”
Jill’s writing and recipes also regularly appear in magazines including Bon Appétit, Cooking Light, Fine Cooking, Napa Sonoma, and Clean Eating, where she writes a regular column. And she has developed recipes for corporate clients as well, including the National Pork Board, Annie’s Inc., Robert Mondavi Winery, Hollandia Produce, and the Cherry Marketing Institute.
As a culinary instructor, Jill spent seven years at COPIA: The American Center for Wine, Food & the Arts and is currently a regular and popular presenter at cooking schools throughout the San Francisco Bay Area. As comfortable in the classroom as she is in the kitchen, Jill consistently wows students with her energy, enthusiasm, and immediately-useful information.
A member of the San Francisco Professional Food Society and the International Association of Culinary Professionals, Jill started her career as an advertising copywriter, spending twelve years at agencies in New York, Los Angeles, and San Francisco, on accounts that included TWA, CBS, Huggies, and Hershey’s. She left advertising to open the quintessential neighborhood cafe in Sausalito, California, which she owned for five years and where she made—among other things—the world’s best chocolate chip cookies.
You can read Jill’s blog at www.jillhough.com/blog, become a 100 Perfect Pairings Facebook fan, and follow her on twitter @JillSHough.
