Kathryn Hutchison, President

Kathryn Hutchison writes about the Austin food community and life as a home cook on her blog, Austin Gastronomist. She has been blogging since 2003, and her work has been featured on Foodpress.com, Tastespotting, and the Food News Journal’s “Best of Blogs.” When she’s not blogging, Kathryn works in marketing at Greenling and is an aspiring Bikram yogi.

Megan Myers, Vice President

Megan Myers is a writer, recipe developer, and copyeditor. She has been writing her blog Stetted since 2006, where she chronicles her time spent cooking for her family with an emphasis on balanced eating and local sourcing. She is a contributor to Simple Bites and Food Fanatic, is co-organizer of ATX Swappers, and her clients include Whole Foods Market.

Nelly Paulina Ramirez, Treasurer

Nelly Paulina Ramirez has been blogging at aneelee since 2009, where she writes about feeding her vegetarian family of three good and healthy(ish) eats. She loves strawberries in January, the first grapefruits of the season, and recreating her mother’s Yucatecan food in her own kitchen. She fills the rest of her busy days with being a mama, being a loving partner, running a small business thegeminisociety.com and making things.

Natalie Paramore, Secretary

Natalie Paramore is a 20-something gal cooking and eating her way through Austin, Texas, and a few other places along the way. She loves to travel, is an avid reader and always up for anything that will get her adrenaline pumping. When she’s not trying out something new for her blog, Food Fetish, you can find her hanging out with her dog Mimi.

Margaret Perkins, Development Chair

Margaret Christine, Maggie, cooks, photographs, farms and shares the art and craft of home, in word and photo, on Notes From Maggie’s Farm. Feeling incredibly fortunate to live in the beautiful Hill Country of Texas, she finds herself the caretaker of three goats, 15 hens, a noisy rooster (whose days are numbered), a few ducks, a couple of rabbits, three dogs, two cats and one Yankee.

Heather Santos, Membership Chair

Heather Santos blogs about her cooking and baking experiments and dinning out at Midnite Chef.  She is a Product Specialist at Fieldbus Foundation in Austin, Texas, and Instrumentation Technologist by trade.  She volunteers with Bake A Wish and Cub Scouts.  Heather loves to use food as a creative outlet for her passions in life.

Kristin Sheppard, Education Chair

Kristin Sheppard blogs about pop culture, events, and foodie trends at Mad Betty. She is a professional copywriter with a background in advertising, publisher marketing, social media, and nonprofit development. Kristin and her husband love living in South Austin and enjoying everything this weird city has to offer.

Christy Horton, Philanthropy Chair

Christy Horton began blogging at epicuriosities.com about Austin restaurants and other sweet things in 2009. She currently works for CookingPlanit.com as the executive pastry chef and blogger liaison. Her near obsessive need to volunteer and passion for the Austin culinary scene led to her current position of philanthropy chair.

 

Brittanie Duncan, Social Chair

Brittanie Duncan is inspired by health, believing in the importance of being your best self through whole nutrition and fitness. She is an advocate of the Paleo lifestyle, encouraging a diet of organic meats, vegetables and fruits, nuts and seeds. Also known as the hunter-gatherer or “caveman” diet, Paleo eliminates processed foods, grains, gluten, dairy, sugar and legumes. She has seen enormous health benefits with this lifestyle. However, like many, her family’s different diets are not in perfect harmony. To keep her sanity at mealtimes, she developed some tips and tricks to satisfy three healthy diets with one dinner. www.threedietsonedinner.com features healthy, inspired paleo recipes the whole family can enjoy.

Tiffany Young, Marketing Chair

Tiffany Lynn Young loves food, music and fun! She has been writing at ohspooning.com for more than a year, has a published children’s book “Jump Little Cake, Jump!” (jumplittlecake.com) and is learning the ukulele to take her children’s music on the road. She’s also worked as a reporter and editor for several newspapers in the Austin area. Oh, and she loves cupcakes!

Will Burdette, Technology Chair

Will Burdette is program coordinator at the Digital Writing & Research Lab in the Department of Rhetoric and Writing at The University of Texas at Austin, where he is also a Ph.D. student. He has cooked in restaurants, volunteered for food-related nonprofits, and makes the weekly food podcast, “No Satiation.”

Addie Broyles, Special Projects/Cookbook Chair

Addie Broyles has been writing and blogging about food for the Austin American-Statesman since 2008. When she’s not chasing around her two young sons, she blogs at Relish Austin and The Feminist Kitchen.

Natanya Anderson, Immediate Past President

Natanya Anderson celebrates all things food and drink in Austin at the Austin Food Lovers’ Companion. She is the director of social media and community at Whole Foods Market and mom to a foodie-in-training teenager. To keep everything in balance, she runs (sometimes unseemly long distances) with Gilbert’s Gazelles.

The AFBA Advisory Council includes:

• Cathy Cochran-Lewis president, Austin Food & Wine Alliance
• David Ansel, Soup Peddler
• John Bullington, Drafthouse chef
• Vance Ely, Central Market cooking school
• Elizabeth Englehart, Foodways Texas, UT professor, author
• Lisa Goddard, Capital Area Food Bank of Texas
• Adam Holzband, nFusion
• Susan Leibrock, Sustainable Food Center community relations manager
• Mando Rayo, Cultural Strategies, Taco Journalism
• Jam Santichat, Thai Fresh
• Dave Shaw, Arsenal
• Brian Stubbs, FINO
• Toni Tipton-Martin, IACP host chair, food writer and SANDE Youth founder
• Marshall Wright, ATX Man, EatThisLens.com