About Me
Broadcaster, food writer, consultant to industry, lecturer on food and culture, and cooking teacher, Lynne Rossetto Kasper is a peerless force in connecting home cooks and professional chefs to the best foods of the world. All accomplished in the before times when social media was little more than a 12-button landline, and traveling put one out of communications for days at a time.
Co-Creator and Host of American Public Media's “Splendid Table” program – a first of its kind broadcast that combined an interview format with guest chefs from around the world, and a call-in format from home cooks seeking advice and knowledge. Recorded live from 1995 – 2017, The Splendid Table offered endearing segments such as "Turkey Confidential" and "Stump The Cook," sealing Kasper's brand as a trusted friend in the
kitchen for both the novice cook and the professional chef.
Carving her own unique place in the world of food writing, Kasper's deep curiosity led her to research food culture and Renaissance food history, particularly in northern Italy. Her approach set a new standard for food writing. These inter-sections of history, culture and food made her books immensely readable for cooks and non-cooks alike. Kasper's approach combined recipes with cultural facts and storytelling to help place the reader side by side with the artisans, farmers, and home cooks who've made great food for centuries.
Her extensive travels to research her work provided first-person authenticity to her writing – a craft which, today, with its budget and time requirements makes it difficult to replicate.
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Consistently curious and energetic, Kasper researched and wrote books in addition to her columns, courses, and radio scripts. Her books, The Splendid Table: Recipes from Emilia-Romagna, How to Eat Weekends, How To Eat Supper, and The Italian Country Table - Home Cooking from Italy's Farmhouse Kitchens remain as trusted friends on countless kitchen shelves.
10 things you didn't know about Lynne.
+ After publishing “The Splendid Table: Recipes from Emilia Romagna” in 1993, Lynne stayed with Julia in California. After dinner, Julia said, “Lynne you know you’ve written a seminal book, don’t you?” Lynne was dumbstruck silent, and Julia then said, “Lynne, you do know what seminal means, don’t you?”
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+ Voice used in the 2011 opening of the movie “Tower Heist” with Ben Stiller, Eddie Murphy, Matthew Broderick and Alan Alda. Brett Ratner, the director, was a fan of Lynne’s.
+ Lynne’s first recipe at 8 years old: canned baked beans mixed with pickle relish, piled on whole wheat toast, topped with Parmigiano and broiled.
+ One of Lynne's renowned Smithsonian Museum lectures inspired Joyce Lock to develop the cult favorite "Foodie Fight: A Trivia Game for Serious Food Lovers.” Released in 2007 and revised in 2018.
+ Comedian Ana Gasteyer noted “The Splendid Table” radio show as inspiration for the Saturday Night Live long running skit “NPR’s Delicious Dish.” Over the year’s the skit included a variety of celebrity hosts; including John Goodman, Betty White and Alec Baldwin. It debuted in 1996, and was reprised in a commercial for Capitol One with Samuel L. Jackson in November 2024. The skit is considered one of the “Top
20 Greatest Skits of All Time” by Rolling Stone, the Guardian, Esquire, and many others. Ben & Jerry’s Ice Cream created a flavor based on the skit.