Lisa Holmes is a chef, educator, writer, chocolatier and mother of two young children. Her writing career began early with her first published work appearing in a locally produced magazine when she was 7, and her interest in feeding people began around the same time when she received her first Easy Bake Oven. A move to England and extensive European travel between the ages of 9 and 12 helped solidify her early culinary interests.After graduating from Wellesley College with a degree in English she began her formal writing career as a travel journalist for Frommer's, authoring or co-authoring 11 guidebooks, including Paris, Amsterdam, New Orleans, San Francisco, New Mexico, and Maui. Traveling became an adventure in food, and it wasn't long before she traded her pen for a chef's knife and entered The Culinary Institute of America (CIA) where she received a degree in Culinary Arts, and as valedictorian of her class, was honored with the Waldorf Astoria Award for Academic Excellence and the President's Scholarship.Not long after receiving her Culinary Arts degree, Holmes combined her writing and cooking skills and coauthored Bitter Harvest (Routledge, 2000) with Chef Ann Cooper and opened a small, artisan chocolate business. Other works by Holmes and Cooper include In Mother's Kitchen (Rizzoli, 2005) and Lunch Lessons (HarperCollins 2006). Lunch Lessons won an IACP cookbook award in 2007.Currently, Holmes is the owner and Chef-Director of The Children's Culinary Academy located in Falmouth, MA, where she teaches children (and sometimes adults!) about cooking with a focus on educating people about the importance of local, regional, seasonal, sustainable foodways. Holmes is a member of Slow Food International, Oldways, and Chefs Collaborative.Visit www.childrensculinary.com for more information about class schedules.