About Camilla
Camilla Saulsbury is a freelance food writer, recipe developer, and an ardent home cook and baker. Her culinary focus is translating food and flavor trends into fast, fresh and delicious recipes for the home kitchen.
From Model to Sociologist to Food Writer…
Camilla began her professional career at age 12 as a model in San Francisco, California. She left modeling behind to earn her B.A. in sociology, with honors, from Bryn Mawr College and continued on to earn her Ph.D. in sociology from Indiana University.
But cooking was in her blood. Camilla began cooking in her parent’s kitchen in California at an early age and, beginning in her teenage years, pursued a culinary self-education by reading every cooking tome she could get her hands on and spending her evenings and weekends experimenting with cooking and baking. Camilla took advantage of the considerable culinary talent in San Francisco Bay Area, too, taking cooking classes from notable chefs such as Hubert Keller and Traci des Jardins. She also spent a brief time catering specialty desserts.
In graduate school, Camilla began writing what would soon become a popular weekly cooking column for students in the Indiana University newspaper. She also started entering—and winning—a wide range of cooking competitions. Since she first began entering in 1999, she has won more than 25 grand prizes in national recipe contests and cooking competitions, including two that are considered the “top five” national contests: the $100,000 National Chicken Cooking Contest and the $50,000 Build a Better Burger Contest.
Meanwhile, Camilla continued her work in sociology. For her teaching, Camilla was singled out for the highest award a graduate student instructor can earn at Indiana University, the Lieber Memorial Teaching Associate Award. She also began merging her sociological research and food interests. The result was her doctoral dissertation, a multi-faceted study of the contemporary meanings of home cooking in American culture. Following completion of her Ph.D., Camilla decided to switch careers, making food writing, food research, and recipe development her primary occupations.
Camilla’s recipes have appeared in such magazines as Southern Living, Better Homes and Gardens, Cooking Light, Woman’s Day, Cosmo Girl, Quick & Simple, Country Woman, Sunset, Cook’s Country, and Vegetarian Times. In 2006 she served as a spokesperson and recipe developer for Pillsbury brownie mixes and cake mixes. She has made multiple appearances on the Food Network, has been featured in the New York Times, on Today and QVC, and is a member of the International Association of Culinary Professionals (IACP). She also teaches cooking classes and writes a weekly food column for a regional Indiana newspaper.
Camilla is the author of seven cookbooks, all published by Cumberland House Publishing. Her most recent cookbook is Enlightened Chocolate: More Than 200 Decadently Light, Easy-To-Make, and Inspired Recipes Using Dark Chocolate & Unsweetened Cocoa Powder, published in October 2007. It is the first compendium cookbook devoted to light chocolate recipes using antioxidant-rich dark chocolate and cocoa powder.
Enlightened Chocolate is also the first volume in Camilla’s new Enlightened Cooking cookbook series. Each volume unites two major trends in contemporary home cooking for today’s busy, health-conscious cooks: first, lighter cooking, specifically recipes and ideas for cooking at home that keep fat and calories in balance; second, quick, convenient cooking.
The Fitness Factor
Camilla has a second professional passion: fitness. For more than 14 years she has been teaching a wide range of fitness classes, including, but not limited to, pilates, yoga, spinning, kickboxing, strength training and step aerobics.
Camilla has taught fitness in multiple settings, including universities (e.g., UC Berkeley and Indiana University), spas (e.g., Claremont Spa & Health Club in Berkeley, CA), private gyms (e.g., in the San Francisco Bay Area, Indiana, and Texas), and private resorts. She has trained other fitness instructors to teach, and has led a variety of fitness workshops for other instructors.
In addition, Camilla has spent many years as a personal trainer, designing unique fitness programs for a diverse clientele. She holds certifications in both personal training and fitness instruction through the American Council on Exercise (ACE) and is a STOTT certified pilates instructor.
Camilla’s fitness philosophy mirrors her cooking philosophy: balanced, practical and simplified. She loves motivating and encouraging people to find fitness activities that help them lead happy, healthy, productive lives—and that foster an appetite for great food!