Early life and education

Moulton was born in New York City, and attended The Brearley School in New York City.

The idea of channeling her childhood passion for food into a career did not occur to Moulton until after she graduated from the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor, Michigan, with a major in the history of ideas in 1974.

Moulton enrolled at the Culinary Institute of America in Hyde Park, New York in 1975 and graduated with highest honors in 1977, winning a scholarship from Les Dames D'Escoffier in the process.

Career

She began working in restaurants immediately, first in Boston, Massachusetts, and then in New York City, taking off time only for a postgraduate apprenticeship with Master Chef Maurice Cazalis of the Henri IV Restaurant in Chartres, France, in 1979. Between 1981 and 1983 she was the chef tournant at La Tulipe, a three-star restaurant in New York City.

In 1982, Moulton co-founded the New York Women's Culinary Alliance, a still-functioning "old girl's network" designed to help women working in the culinary field.

In the interest of starting a family, she left restaurant work and began devoting herself instead to recipe testing and development. Moulton worked for two years as an instructor at Peter Kump's New York Cooking School (now known as the Institute of Culinary Education), where she discovered her love of teaching.

In 1984, she took a job in the test kitchen at Gourmet. Four years later she became chef of the magazine's executive dining room.

Television

In 1979 Moulton's television career began when she was hired to work behind the scenes on Julia Child & More Company, a cooking program on PBS. Her friendship with Julia Child led eventually to Moulton's job at Good Morning America, where what started as another behind-the-scenes position ripened in 1997 into on-camera work.

By then she had begun hosting the Food Network's Cooking Live. Six years and over 1,200-hour-long shows later, that show ended on March 31, 2002. Sara's Secrets, which began the next day, ran until 2007. “Sara Moulton is a chef, and one of the few people knowledgeable enough to field live phone-in queries, the basis of her show," wrote The New Yorker's Bill Buford.

The fifth season of "Sara's Weeknight Meals" began airing on public television in October 2015. The show was nominated for a James Beard Award in 2013 and 2015, while Moulton herself has been nominated three times as Outstanding Personality/Host, most recently in 2014.

The Written Word

Her first cookbook, Sara Moulton Cooks at Home, was published by Broadway Books in October 2002, and was meant to counter America's disastrous love affair with fast food by encouraging everyone to cook delicious and healthy food at home and to dine with family and friends. "While rooted in classic French technique, the book also accommodates the American hunger for convenience, novelty and freshness," wrote Mike Dunne for The Sacramento Bee.

Moulton's second cookbook, Sara's Secrets for Weeknight Meals, was published by Broadway Books in October 2005. It was reviewed by Michelle Green in People magazine, who wrote: "Sara has a gift for creating quick, accessible fine cuisine. Why suffer to make a gorgeous meal?"

Her third cookbook, Sara Moulton's Everyday Family Dinners, was published by Simon & Schuster in April 2010. Blogging for StoveTop Readings in November 2010, Greg Mowery wrote: "If there is a less pretentious, more accessible, and creative cookbook that gets great food on the table in good time with the least amount of fuss, I haven't seen it this year….This new book belongs in every family kitchen."

Moulton's fourth cookbook, Home Cooking 101: How to Make Everything Taste Better, was published Oxmoor House in March of 2016. Diana K. Rice, in The Huffington Post, described it as "extremely useful to the home cook. like a textbook, albeit...with fabulous food photos and enticing recipes."

In August 2012 Moulton began writing a weekly column entitled "The Healthy Plate" for the Associated Press. In January of 2015, she replaced it with a new column called "KitchenWise."

Awards

• 2001 Culinary Institute of America's Chef of the Year.
• 2002 inducted into the James Beard Foundation's Who's Who of Food and Beverage in America.
• 2011 Sara Moulton's Everyday Family Dinners was an International Association of Culinary Professionals Cookbook Awards Winner in the category of Children, Youth and Family.
• The International Restaurant & Foodservice Show of New York & Ferdinand Metz Foodservice Forum 2016 Beacon Award.

Personal life

Moulton lives in New York City with her husband, Bill Adler, an American music journalist and critic, and their two children, Sam and Ruth.

Bibliography

• Moulton, Sara; Anderson, Jean (2000). The Good Morning America Cut the Calories Cookbook - 120 Delicious Low-Fat, Low-Calorie Recipes from Our Viewers. Hyperion Books (New York City). ISBN 978-0-7868-6163-7.
• Moulton, Sara; Pierce, Charles (2002). Sara Moulton Cooks at Home. Broadway Books (New York City). ISBN 978-0-7679-0770-5.
• Moulton, Sara; Hayes, Joanne Lamb (2005). Sara's Secrets for Weeknight Meals. Broadway Books (New York City). ISBN 978-0-7679-1659-2.
• Moulton, Sara (2010). Sara Moulton's Everyday Family Dinners. Simon & Schuster (New York City). ISBN 1-4391-0251-1.
• Moulton, Sara (2016). Home Cooking 101: How to Make Everything Taste Better. Oxmoor House. ISBN 978-0848744410.

Videography

• Moulton, Sara; Food and Beverage Institute (Culinary Institute of America); Culinary Institute of America (1999?). Great Chefs Series with Sara Moulton. Food and Beverage Institute (Hyde Park, New York). ISBN 978-1-58315-195-2 (VHS format).
• Moulton, Sara; Hallquist, Gary; Prime Time Video Productions; Johnson & Wales University (2000). Chef Sara Moulton. Prime Time Video Productions (Providence, Rhode Island). OCLC 54841683 (VHS format).
• Moulton, Sara; Flay, Bobby; Deen, Paula H.; Ray, Rachael; Food Network. (2003). Cooking from the Grill. Food Network (New York City). OCLC 156995722 (DVD format).
• Moulton, Sara; Food Network (2004). Sara's Secrets with Sara Moulton - Celebrating the Holidays. Food Network (New York City). OCLC 62411039 (DVD format).
• Moulton, Sara; Food Network (2004). Sara's Secrets with Sara Moulton - Effortless Entertaining Food Network (New York City). OCLC 62411686 (DVD format).
• Moulton, Sara; Food Network (2006). Sara's Secrets with Sara Moulton - Celebrating the Holidays. Food Network (New York City). OCLC 173282680 (DVD format). (reissue, with additional material, of 2004 release)
• Garten, Ina; Moulton, Sara; Deen, Paula H.; Food Network (2006). Holiday Best, 2006. Food Network (New York City). OCLC 181746062 (DVD format).

[ Source: Wikipedia ]