About
Spices of Life is an innovative project that engages lovers of food, good health, and fun through an on-line vlog and blog, and downloadable podcasts. The show features Nina Simonds, contributer to the New York Times, Oprah Magazine, and author of several best-selling cookbooks. For more info, check out http://www.spicesoflife.com.
Bios
Nina Simonds is one of the country’s leading authorities on Asian cooking. She is the author of ten books on Chinese cuisine and culture, including the best-selling Asian Noodles and A Spoonful of Ginger, which won both the IACP and the James Beard Foundation Book Award for health. Her children’s book, Moonbeams, Dumplings and Dragon Boats: Chinese Folktales and Activities for Children, (Harcourt Brace) won a Parent’s Choice Award and a 2002 Chapman Award for Best Classroom Read-Alouds. Simonds’ last book Spices of Life: Simple and Delicious Recipes for Great Health also won both the IACP and the James Beard Foundation Book Award for health in May of 2006.
In 2001, Simonds hosted a public television food/health/lifestyle special Spoonful of Ginger: Food as Medicine which won the James Beard Foundation Award for Outstanding Television Special. She has been a member of the Nutrition Roundtable at the Harvard School of Public Health for the past eight years.
Simonds is a regular contributor to Oprah Magazine and the New York Times. She was a Correspondent/ Contributing Editor for Gourmet Magazine for six years, but began writing for Gourmet 27 years ago. Her articles have appeared in The Washington Post, The Los Angeles Times, Health Cooking Light, Harper’s Bazaar, Bon Appetit, Family Circle, and Self magazine.
Her website and food/health/lifestyle video blog, www.spicesoflife.com was launched in February and has been featured in The Washington Post, The Boston Globe, and on the home page of iTunes.
Read more about Nina Simonds’s books here.
Elissa Mintzis a freelance videographer and video editor for Spices of Life and for GrowingWisdom.com, a resource for gardeners created by WCVB meteorologist and horticulturist Dave Epstein. She has created about 300 videos for the site. Elissa has also produced videos for Whole Foods Market; the Mass Medical Society, the Museum of Science, Boston; and was the editor for Tingle Television, a cable access program hosted by comedian and former 60 Minutes commentator Jimmy Tingle. In 2005 she ventured into documentary filmmaking with a short piece called “All Night Long: Zydeco in New England”. She also edited the award-winning film “ Smile Boston Project”, by film maker David Tames. Elissa is a former software technical writer with experience creating interactive online training materials. Elissa has a B.A. in English Literature from Wellesley College.
Steve Garfield is an advisor to media and internet companies about online video, a speaker at conferences on mobile video broadcasting, video producer and teacher of New Media Tools for Journalism at Boston University. He is one of the Internet’s first video bloggers having launched his own regular video blog on January 1, 2004. He was the founding video producer for Spices of Life. Steve has been a featured speaker at the New England Newspaper Association, Streaming Media East/West, New Media Expo, PodCamp Boston, Video on the Net - Boston and San Jose, NH Film Festival, Woods Hole Film Festival, and Podcast Academy Boston. Currently, he provides citizen journalism reports for CNN iReport, Rocketboom, TheUptake, and techPresident.
