Bio
Lesley Porcelli has been a recipe editor for Food Network for more than a decade. Everyone wants to know if this means she cooks all the recipes. No, she says, that’s a recipe tester (a role she has also played for magazines and cookbooks). Lesley makes sure all the recipes connected to our shows are clear and reflect the intention of the writer, which means she spends a lot of time asking chefs leading questions. She also writes for us regularly.
When she’s not working with us, Lesley is writing and editing for magazines, websites and apps — and co-authoring books, most recently Parm to Table, with chef Christian Petroni. She lives in Syracuse, NY. She is an avid baker, daily crossword puzzler and lover of dogs.
Highlights
- Recipe editor and developer
- Food writer for both print and digital
- Co-authored a cookbook
Experience
Lesley’s freelance career has included consulting with restaurant owners regarding their themes, menus and recipes, and her life as a writer and editor has led her into adventures like hot air ballooning in the Upper Peninsula of Michigan and visiting an off-kilter Christmas museum in Pennsylvania. She was an editor at Gourmet Magazine and staff writer at Martha Stewart Living. Her work has appeared also in Saveur, Fine Cooking, Allrecipes, Prevention, TripAdvisor and many others.
Education
Lesley attended the Institute of Culinary Arts and received a bachelor’s degree in Psychology from Columbia University.
