Joanne Weir

Joanne Weir is a San Francisco-based award-winning cookbook author, cooking teacher, chef and television personality. Ms. Weir hosts a 26-part Public Television Series called Weir Cooking in the Wine Country, which airs nationally in the US. Her newest book, the companion cookbook to her TV show is called "Weir Cooking, Recipes from the Wine Country " and was released Fall 1999 by Time Life.
Joanne was awarded the inaugural IACP Cooking Teacher Award of Excellence in 1997. She is the author of award-winning "You Say Tomato", Broadway Books 1998 and "From Tapas to Meze", Crown, 1994, both of which were nominated for James Beard Cookbook Awards. "From Tapas to Meze" was also selected by Julia Child as one of her twelve personal favorites out of 1000 cookbooks published in 1994. Joanne authored the four-part series titled Seasonal Celebrations, released 1997 by Williams-Sonoma. Weir is a regular contributor to national magazines and newspapers.

Joanne's professional experience includes five years of cooking at Chez Panisse Restaurant in Berkeley, California. Her professional training included a year of full-time study and apprenticeship with Madeleine Kamman in New England and France and was awarded a Master Chef Diploma. Joanne tours and teaches extensively throughout the United States, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, Italy and France, spending 7 to 8 months per year teaching all over the world both professionally and non-professionally. Joanne is a member of the International Association of Culinary Professionals, American Institute of Wine and Food, Women Chefs and Restauranteurs, the James Beard Foundation and the San Francisco Professional Food Society.

Joanne's association with food and enthusiasm for cooking comes from a long line of chefs. A fourth generation professional cook, Joanne's great-grandmother operated a restaurant in Boston at the turn of the century called Pilgrim's Pantry. Working with food carried forward to her mother, also a professional chef and caterer, who worked with cookbook author, Charlotte Turgeon for ten years. Joanne continues that same tradition. Weir holds a Fine Arts Degree in Art Education from the University of Massachusetts and taught Fine Arts in Boston for five years before pursuing a career in food.

Ms. Weir has an extensive culinary background with regards to the history, theory and technique of Mediterranean cuisine, as well as the regional foods of the United States, particularly California. These elements are brought to life in her creative, thoughtful, enthusiastic classes, writing and television series.