About

Rozanne Gold, is one of the most prominent women in the food world. As an award-winning chef, author, journalist and restaurant consultant she helped shape America’s culinary landscape as a pioneer in the food revolution that began in the 1970’s. A four-time winner of the James Beard Award and recipient of the Julia Child/IACP award, she began her remarkable career at the age of 23 as first chef to New York Mayor Ed Koch and later became the youngest female executive chef in the country for Lord & Taylor’s thirty-eight restaurants. As Chef-Director of the renowned hospitality group, Baum + Whiteman, Ms. Gold helped create New York’s magical Rainbow atop Rockefeller Center (where she was co-owner and consulting chef for 15 years), Windows on the World, and three of New York’s three-star restaurants, including the Hudson River Club in 1987 where she helped launch today’s locavore movement.

Gold is the author of thirteen cookbooks, including the revolutionary 1-2-3 series that gave rise to the Minimalist column in the New York Times. Recipes 1-2-3 gained international status and was published in England, Israel, Turkey, and the Czech Republic. Gold’s first book, Little Meals: a Great New Way to Eat & Cook, propelled today’s grazing craze into a national trend, and her highly respected cookbook for teens called Eat Fresh Food: Awesome Recipes for Teen Chefs was featured in the Science section of The New York Times. Gold’s Radically Simple: Brilliant Flavors with Breathtaking Ease, was chosen as one of the most important cookbooks of 2010 by The New York Times, Good Morning America, and People magazine and was named one of the most important books of the past 25 years by Cooking Light magazine. Her new ebook, “The 1-2-3 Collection” continues to be a best-seller in Apple’s iTunes store. In 2014, she wrote the foreword to Fresh Cooking by Shelley Boris, and was the New York restaurant editor for the book 1001 Restaurants to Experience Before You Die, published by Barrons.

Ms. Gold is also an acclaimed food writer and journalist. She was the entertaining columnist for Bon Appetit magazine for five years, and has written for The New York Times (the Op-Ed page, the Dining Section, and Sunday Magazine), The Wall Street Journal, Oprah, Gourmet, More, FoodArts, Natural Health, Real Food, Gotham, and writes weekly features for the Huffington Post and is a contributor to Cooking Light.

As Chef to Mayor Koch, Ms. Gold cooked for Presidents, Prime Ministers and dignitaries from all walks of life. Business Week named her a “Mover and Shaker”; Cooking Light magazine named her one of “America’s Top Five Enlightened Chefs”; Chef magazine nominated her “Innovator of the Year”; the Food & Beverage Association of America honored her as ‘Hospitality Professional of the Year,” and Drexel University made her a Distinguished Visiting Professor. She is the recipient of the “Olive Tree Award” given by the Jewish National Fund for her efforts in promoting Israel’s food and wine industry. She was the consulting chef at a gala for 5000 in Washington, D.C. for the Women’s War Memorial, an event that became one of the most meaningful in her life.

Known as the “food expert’s expert,” she has set the Gold Standard for a style of cooking that has inspired professional chefs and home cooks alike to “keep it simple.” A respected food-trends pundit, Ms. Gold invents concepts that give restaurants and food companies their competitive edge. An early proponent of American regional cooking, she helped create American Spoon Foods, the first specialty food company to focus on regional ingredients. She invented Hudson River Cuisine, turning the idea into a three-star concept for the Hudson River Club; and was responsible for developing New York’s first pan-Mediterranean restaurant (Café Greco), featuring “Med-Rim Cuisine.” Ms. Gold is the inventor of “Venetian Wine Cake,” which was produced by Greyston Bakery and featured on 60-Minutes.

Ms. Gold is a frequent guest on national television, including several appearances on the Today Show, and was the first guest on the Food Network’s “TV News and Views.” She is a frequent guest on NPR’s Leonard Lopate Show for which she won a James Beard Award for one of her many appearances. Ms. Gold also won an award for a radio performance about cooking for the blind, and has been guest host for the Joan Hamburg Show on WOR-radio, and for Martha Stewart on Sirius XM.

Ms. Gold’s creativity extends way beyond the kitchen.  Her poetry has appeared in The Loom (the literary magazine of Mt. Sinai), The Plot (Villanness Press), and Blue Lake Review.  She has written a screenplay, Commander-in-Chef, about a woman chef who runs for President; a children’s theatrical production Is There Happiness Ever After performed by the Hollywood Theater Ensemble; created the first prototypes (with Marc Summers) for children’s tv cooking shows (including Recipes 1-2-3 and Cook or Be Cooked); and was editorial consultant on a documentary Tiny Miracles about Alzheimers.  She was editorial contributor to reference books including Savoring Gotham and 1001 Restaurants to Experience Before You Die, and has moderated countless public forums, including The Three Tenors and Gotham on a Plate (The New School), The Next Big Bite (on behalf of Les Dames d’Escoffier at the Institute for Culinary Education), and programs at the Culinary Institute of America.

A graduate of Tufts University with honors in psychology and education, Ms. Gold studied cooking in Italy and France. A past President of Les Dames d’Escoffier, New York, Ms. Gold “rescued” Gourmet Magazine’s 3500-cookbook library by purchasing it and donating it to New York University in honor of her mother who encouraged her to be a chef when women were anathema in professional kitchens. An impassioned hospice worker and advocate in the field of contemplative care, Ms. Gold sits on the Board of Directors of the New York Zen Center for Contemplative Care and helps fund a program in doctor-patient communication at New York University Hospital. She lives in Park Slope, Brooklyn, with her husband, international restaurant consultant, Michael Whiteman. Her daughter, Shayna recently graduated from Ithaca College, and her son Jeremy, a tech consultant, lives in Silicon Valley.