Hi, thanks for being here! I’m Lauren, the founder and editor of Zestful Kitchen. Thanks so much for being here.
I grew up in the heart of the midwest and home of the Cyclones—Ames, Iowa.
My love for cooking has always been strong, I can’t remember a time when I didn’t want to be in the kitchen, standing on a step stool and begging my mom to let me help. I was even entrusted with a paring knife at age three, but that’s a story for another time.
Cooking for others brings me immense joy, but on a one-on-one level, food and I haven’t always gotten along. As life will do to us all, I was thrown some curveballs in my early college years. To find what I thought was control and solitude, I turned to running and food, which snowballed into a dangerous disease.
Some of the hardest years of my life ensued while I tried navigating back to a “normal” life. As time passed, Zestful Kitchen and working as a server at The Cafe helped me rediscover the delight of cooking and my love for the art.
How Zestful Kitchen Came to Be
Zestful Kitchen has morphed quite a bit since 2014 when I launched the site while still in college. I started ZK as a creative outlet and only started taking it seriously in 2016 when I decided to commit wholeheartedly.
Four years of working on Zestful Kitchen at night and during the weekends eventually led to me leaving my full-time Assistant Editor position at Cuisine at Home Magazine and pursuing ZK and my freelance writing full-time.
Since then, the website has grown to reach hundreds of thousands of readers per month and more than half a million followers on social media.
Education
I attended Iowa State University where I earned two Bachelor of Science degrees in Culinary Food Science and Journalism and Mass Communications.
Culinary Internships
During my college years I interned at The Soy Foods Council, Dotdash Meredith, and America’s Test Kitchen.
Career
Throughout my career, I’ve worked for a number of food magazines and test kitchens including America’s Test Kitchen, Cuisine at Home Magazine and Test Kitchen, and Better Homes and Gardens (DotDash Meredith) Test Kitchen.
I’ve also had the honor of being awarded Better Homes & Gardens Stylemaker from 2022–2024 and had the honor of attending the 100th Birthday Celebration for Better Homes and Gardens Magazine.
My Recipe Development Style
More than anything else, recipe development is what I do. My recipe development style has been honed over years spent in professional test kitchens—a framework built to deliver recipes you can trust. Learn more about how I develop recipes.
Trusted & Cited By
I’ve been cited and had work featured in some of the most respected names in food publishing including:
- America’s Test Kitchen
- Better Homes & Garden’s
- All Recipes
- Taste of Home
- Eating Well
- Forbes
- Midwest Living
- Bake From Scratch Magazine
Outside the Kitchen
Aside from the food world, I’m married to a fellow Midwesterner, Greg, who is an incredible residential architect and co-business owner of Unfold Architecture. We have a pup named Indiana who begrudgingly has moved all over the country with us over the past few years.
Because we both can work remotely, we packed up and sold our house in Des Moines, Iowa and have been trying out different US cities for the past five years. We’ve lived in Austin, TX, Minneapolis, MN, Seattle, WA, Manhattan, and are currently residing back in Minneapolis.
If you need help finding a recipe, have a cooking question or recipe request, send an email to lauren@zestfulkitchen(dot)com.
Want to work together?
Check out my list of services or check out my list of published work.
Drop me a line when you are ready to chat.
Zestful Kitchen’s privacy policy can be reviewed here.