JULIE USHER
NOVEMBER 4, 4:00 PM - 6:00 PM - JULIE USHER with COOKIE SWAP: CREATIVE TREATS TO SHARE THROUGHOUT THE YEAR at Just Books (Book Signing)
Just Books welcomes celebrated pastry chef and food writer Julia Usher as she introduces her new book Cookie Swap: Creative Treats to Share Throughout the Year (Gibbs Smith; $19.99), at Just Books, 28 Arcadia Road, Old Greenwich, Conn., from 4:00 -- 6:00 p.m., Wednesday, November 4, 2009.
Usher has designed extraordinary desserts for such magazines as Chocolatier, Better Homes and Gardens, Bon Appetit, and Modern Bride, and such books as Vera Wang on Weddings and For the Love of Food. Usher is a former contributing editor at Chocolatier magazine, a James Beard Foundation Journalism Awards finalist, and a director of the International Association of Culinary Professionals (IACP). (Gibbs Smith; $19.99)
Ever since sampling the dazzling pink daisy cookies at her first cookie swap, Julia M. Usher has been a lover of all things sweet. As a young child, Julia cultivated her budding cooking skills by riding the apron strings of her mom - an accomplished home baker who ran a tight kitchen. "Make it from scratch or don't make it at all" was her mother's favorite mantra. By the age of 12, while other kids were still tinkering with their Easy-Bake ovens, Julia was wowing friends and families with lavishly decorated yeast breads and multi-layer tortes. (Julia was also known on occasion to whip up a very lifelike soap and mud frosting cake for her sometimes pesky little sister.) In 1994, Julia decided to turn her passion into her profession by enrolling in the Cambridge School of Culinary Arts. She graduated valedictorian, receiving the coveted M.F.K. Fisher Prize for outstanding scholarship in 1996. One year later, Julia opened AzucArte, a boutique bakery widely lauded for its wedding cakes that tasted as wonderful as they looked.
When not baking, Julia serves as a director of the International Association of Culinary Professionals. She is also a founding member of the St. Louis chapter of Les Dames d' Escoffier International and a three-time president of the St. Louis Culinary Society. In addition to her degree from Yale, Julia holds a master's degree in mechanical engineering from the University of California, Berkeley, and an MBA from Stanford. She divides her time between St. Louis, Missouri and Stonington, Maine.
