Molly Stevens is a freelance cooking instructor, writer, and recipe developer. Her most recent cookbook, All About Dinner: Simple Meals, Expert Advice came out in the fall of 2019 and was nominated for both a James Beard Foundation and IACP book award. Her previous cookbooks, All About Braising: The Art of Uncomplicated Cooking (2004) and All About Roasting: A New Approach to a Classic Art (2011), each won James Beard and IACP cookbook awards.

Molly has been named Cooking Teacher of the Year by both Bon Appétit and IACP. Her recipes and articles have appeared in Bon Appétit, Food & Wine, Fine Cooking, Eating Well, The Wall Street Journal, Everyday with Rachel Ray, Real Simple, Yankee, and other national publications. Molly has been described in the New York Times Book Review as “a beautifully clear writer who likes to teach.”

From 2000 through 2005, Molly co-edited the annual series, The Best American Recipes (Houghton-Mifflin) with Fran McCullough. In 2006, Molly and Fran culminated the series by publishing The 150 Best American Recipes: Indispensable Dishes from Legendary Chefs and Undiscovered Cooks (Houghton-Mifflin), which was nominated as an IACP finalist. Previously, Molly co-authored One Potato, Two Potato: 300 Recipes from Simple to Elegant (Houghton-Mifflin) with Roy Finamore. She also wrote New England, part of the Williams-Sonoma New American Cooking Series (Time-Life). 

In 2022, Molly started the Everything Cookbooks podcast along with three other veteran cookbook authors, Andrea Nguyen, Kate Leahy, and Kristin Donnelly.

Born and raised in Buffalo, NY, Molly comes from a large family who loves to gather around the table – and always makes room for guests. In her early twenties, she moved to France to pursue her dream of living a life dedicated to food and cooking. After several years abroad, she returned home to work at the French Culinary Institute in New York City. She later settled in Vermont where she taught at New England Culinary Institute for nearly a decade. Molly holds a master’s degree from the Bread Loaf School of English and she can’t remember the last time she skipped dinner.

Here is a link to an interview in which Molly talks about her background and how she came to write cookbooks.

TEACHING AWARDS

THE 10TH ANNUAL BON APPÉTIT AWARDS: Molly was selected as the 2007 Bon Appetit Cooking Teacher of the Year for being “[one of the] extraordinary men and women—people like Julia Child [and] Jacques Pépin who have made an indelible mark on the way we eat, drink, cook, read, and entertain.” 

IACP AWARDS OF EXCELLENCE: In 2006, Molly received the Cooking Teacher of the Year award, honoring a vocational, avocational or traveling teacher who effectively communicates an exceptional knowledge of culinary studies and techniques International Association of Culinary Professionals.