Aliya LeeKong is a chef, cookbook author, television personality (and mother!) with a passion for bringing global conscious foods into everyday cooking and eating. Aliya earned degrees from both Brown University and Columbia University before training at the International Culinary Center. She then traveled to different countries to learn food traditions, and worked in diverse restaurants around New York City including Jean Georges, Per Se, and Junoon before writing her first cookbook, Exotic Table - Flavors, Inspiration, and Recipes from Around the World – to Your Kitchen (named “Best of the Best” by Food & Wine magazine). Aliya has been a guest chef on NBC’s Today Show, a judge on both Beat Bobby Flay, and Worst Cooks in America: Celebrity Edition, a culinary expert on MSNBC’s Morning Joe, has worked with brands like Stella Artois and Cadillac, and has been widely covered in publications like Food & Wine, Vogue India, Shape, and Eater. She was most recently Chief Culinary Officer for RealEats and is the creator of Issa’s Edible Adventures, an iOS app and soon-to-be animated series. Aliya resides in Brooklyn, NY with her husband and two daughters.