What do you get when you mix down-home values with quirky up-town flair and a solid culinary education? A deliciously unique cooking personality!
Chef and culinary educator Emily Ellyn is the Home Economics teacher you’ve always wanted! She’s the mother of Retro Rad cooking and encourages everyone to dig through their family recipe box, dust off their pressure cookers, and take the old and make it new. She takes the retro, remixes it, and makes it RAD.
With her quirky persona and trademark cat-eye glasses, this vintage vixen spends most of her time cooking up fun at food events around the world; all while developing her culinary TV career. You’ve seen her on Food Network’s “Food Network Star,” “Cupcake Wars,” “Food Quest”, and “Cutthroat Kitchen” on HGTV’s “House Hunters” as well as the FYI Network, Cooking Channel, and morning news shows across the country. And… was that Emily in a cameo cartoon-appearance on the “Simpsons?”
Cooking has been Emily’s passion ever since she grew up harvesting food and raising animals on a farm in rural Ohio. Eager to dive into the culinary field, she started her own catering company while still in high school. Upon leaving Ohio, Emily graduated with a degree in Restaurant Management from the Culinary Institute of America (CIA) in Hyde Park, New York. There, she worked as a teaching assistant until moving to Paris, France to attend graduate school at Academie Internationale de Management (AIM). Emily then went on to earn an additional master’s degree in Hospitality Management from UCF’s Rosen College of Hospitality and Management in Orlando, Florida.
to Paris to attend graduate school at Academie Internationale de Management. Emily then went on to earn two master’s degrees in Hospitality Management; one in Paris and one from UCF’s Rosen College of Hospitality Management in Orlando.
Through it all, she’s inspired a legion of culinary fans. “My purpose is to nourish people through their hearts, minds, and stomachs,” says Emily, and that’s just what she does; donating time to help non-profit organizations including Florida Hospital and Give Kids the World. She’s also a contributor to “edible” magazine, offers baking advice as the Cake Genius at “Cake Central Magazine,” and elevates the industry with lectures at Catersource.
This year Emily celebrates her 5th year as the national spokesperson for Frigo® cheese and starts her first year representing ©Santa Monica Seafood as a brand spokesperson. In between appearances and developing recipes you’ll likely find Emily at home, raising her one-year-old son, busy in her garden, cooking up culinary projects while finishing her doctoral studies at UCF’s Rosen College of Hospitality and Management.