Terese Allen writes about the pleasures and benefits of regional foods, sustainable cooking, and culinary folklore. She is food editor and columnist for Organic Valley Family of Farm, the country’s largest organic farmers’ cooperative, and a food columnist for Edible Madison magazine.

A former chef, Terese went from kitchen manager to cookbook author when she wrote The Ovens of Brittany Cookbook, a collection of recipes and remembrances from a groundbreaking Midwestern restaurant. Her subsequent books feature the diversity of Wisconsin food, culture, and agriculture--its farmers’ markets, food festivals, cheese factories, small-town cafes, and more. Her many columns, articles, and cookbooks emphasize local ingredients, seasonal dishes and ethnic specialties--and the people and stories behind them.

Terese is co-author, with the late Harva Hachten, of the prize-winning expanded edition of The Flavor of Wisconsin, an extensive history of food and cooking in the Badger State, with more than 450 recipes. Published by Wisconsin Historical Society Press in Spring of 2009, the book got a starred review by Publishers Weekly and was lauded in Gastronomica magazine as and "incredible compilation [that] ought to be in every home, library, and classroom in the state, and in the hands of culinary historians and other foodies everywhere."

Her most recent book, co-authored by Joan Peterson, is the Wisconsin Local Foods Journal, an every-day, at-your-fingertips guide to sustainable eating all through the year.

Terese's "Local Flavor" column ran for ten years in Madison's Isthmus newspaper, and her “Wisconsin Cuisine” column ran for a decade in Wisconsin Trails magazine. Terese is president and founding member of the Culinary History Enthusiasts of Wisconsin (CHEW) and is past-chair and long-time board member of the REAP Food Group, an active grassroots organization that advocates for sustainable food systems in southern Wisconsin.

Terese grew up in Green Bay, Wisconsin, earned a B.A. in philosophy at St. Norbert College, and took culinary training at the Restaurant School of Philadelphia.

Find out more about Terese in the media and at upcoming events.