About

Lisa Profile

Meet Lisa…

…the brains and dishwashing muscle behind Garlic & Zest. I’m an accomplished home cook, recipe developer, and self-taught food photographer who’s been cooking for family and friends for over 40 years — and as the Kitchen Lead for my local food pantry, my team and I cook 160 hot meals each Friday to feed the underserved members of our community.

Cooking Experience

I launched Garlic & Zest in 2013, and it’s grown into a library of more than 1000 food and drink recipes and more than 200 cooking videos.

Many of the recipes on this site are family favorites that we make often, like this Caribbean Poached Fish (court bouillon), easy 4-ingredient Pesto Salmon, this flavorful Italian Sausage Soup which makes a big pot that we’ll enjoy for days, or this hearty German Goulash, which is delicious over noodles or spaetzle.

And whenever there’s a rotisserie chicken in the house, I always use the carcass to make a rotisserie chicken stock.

I’m a contributing recipe developer for two Fox Chapel Publishing cookbooks, the Official Cornhole Cookbook and Bryan Baumgardner’s Seriously Good Chili Cookbook — and in January 2025, I put my own chili to the test and won my local chili cook-off. I’ve also been featured in magazine articles and cooking and news outlets, as well as being a guest on several podcasts.

I aim to help you make mouthwatering meals, sumptuous sips and decadent desserts with tested recipes and step-by-step photos to help you master the dish.

I’ve included my Pro-Tips, Frequently Asked Questions, and simple Swaps and Substitutions in most recipe posts, so you can cook confidently and prepare delicious meals for your family.

My recipes have been featured in Food and Wine, Food Republic, Oprah Daily, Men’s Journal, Eat This, Not That, Simply Recipes, The TakeOut, BuzzFeed, Huffington Post Canada, Better Homes and Gardens, Today, One Green Planet, Country Living, Cosmopolitan, SheKnows, and Honest Cooking, among other publications. Please take a look at my Press Page for a comprehensive list.

Interviews & Podcasts:

Awards:

  • Winner, Local Chili Cook-Off, January 2025
  • Voted Best Recipe Blogger in 2016, South Florida Blogger Awards
  • 2018 Semi-finalist Best Recipe Blogger, South Florida Blogger Awards
  • 2019 Semi-Finalist Best Recipe Blogger, South Florida Blogger Awards

Education:

I have a Bachelor’s degree in Mass Communications from Virginia Commonwealth University, which helped me land my first jobs at two newspapers, The Richmond Times Dispatch and the South Florida Sun-Sentinel, part of Tribune Media. That degree also serves me well in the blogging world.

If you have a comment or question about a recipe, it’s best to leave it on that specific recipe page.  If you have a question unrelated to a recipe, you can comment here or e-mail lisa@garlicandzest.com.  

How I Use AI Here

I’ve been developing recipes at Garlic & Zest since 2013, and every recipe you find here starts the same way it always has: in my own kitchen. I cook it, test it, adjust it, and taste it — often more than once — before it’s ever written down. That’s where the real advice comes from, and AI has no part in creating or changing a recipe.

I only started using AI in my process about six months ago, so the vast majority of the 1,000+ recipes here were built entirely without it. Where I do use it now, here’s exactly how:

I use AI to help draft a starting point for parts of a post. But I read, rewrite, and fact-check every word before it goes live — nothing gets published that isn’t genuinely mine.

On photos: every image here starts with a dish I actually cooked and photographed myself. Sometimes I’ll use AI to help present that food — reworking a shot into a different layout, or showing a finished dish plated when my own photo was taken straight from the pan. In every case, I’m working from my own real photo, and I’m not changing what the food itself looks like, just how it’s presented.

And when you leave a comment or send a question, you’re getting me. I answer those myself, every time.

If you’re ever curious how a specific photo or post came together, just ask.