tephanie Izard is arguably the most well-known chef in Chicago. Ever since she catapulted to national fame, after winning Bravo’s hit TV culinary show Top Chef, her cuisine tastes better and better and her star continues to shine. The University of Michigan alum attended Scottsdale Culinary Institute in Arizona but returned to Chicago to start her culinary career. She worked for a few very accomplished chefs before opening her own restaurants. Most foodies that follow Stephanie know her most famous restaurant, Girl & the Goat, which was nominated best new restaurant by the James Beard Foundation in 2011. But her other Chicago hot spots, which include Little Goat and Duck Duck Goat, are fan favorites as well. Chef Izard won the Beard award for Best Chef Great Lakes in 2013 and was named one of Food & Wine Magazine’s “Best New Chefs” in 2010. In 2011, Izard published her first cookbook, Girl in the Kitchen: How a Top Chef Cooks, Thinks, Shops, Eats and Drinks and now she’s back with a new recipe book called Gather & Graze: 120 Favorite Recipes for Tasty Good Times. As a fan of Stephanie myself, I wanted to dig deeper into her cuisine to learn more about her new cookbook and her inspiration for writing it. Enjoy!
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