Angela Knipple

Had you met Angela as a child, you would not have pegged her as a future food writer. She spent a year eating only cheese and managed to survive, reportedly to spite her mother's assertions that she wouldn't. She didn't like it when her foods touched each other, and her mother and grandfather gained infamy for packing cream of wheat into her seal-shaped pancakes.

But she spent a lot of time in the kitchen, kneading biscuit dough, greasing pans, and stirring cake batter. She picked up stories from her grandparents about their childhood food experiences during the Great Depression, from her mother about chiffon cakes and Jello molds in the 1960s, and from her father about feeding a large farm family.

Her own cooking fame began at age 9 with a 4H-award-winning pan of biscuits and progressed through brownies, cookies, cakes, and more until she could easily say she hadn't met a recipe she couldn't take.

Writing was her first love, though, and it wasn't until love found her in her 30s that she realized she could combine the two. The World in a Skillet is her first book written with her husband, Paul.

Through their food and travel blog, From the Southern Table, Angela and Paul have become go-to people for advice on where to dine in the Memphis area and anywhere else they have traveled. They are also frequent contributors to The Commercial Appeal, The Memphis Flyer, and Edible Memphis Magazine. As co-authors they have written articles for Taste of the South magazine.

Both Angela and Paul have traveled extensively, sampling and exploring food cultures across the United States and beyond, but especially those of their native South.

They are also heavily involved with food as a social and cultural issue. In addition to supporting local farmers' markets, they are members of the Southern Foodways Alliance, the Southern Food and Beverage Museum, and Slow Food International.