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Pamela Sheldon Johns is the author of fifteen cookbooks (see below) specializing in Italian traditional and regional ingredients. She lives at Poggio Etrusco, her organic farm/Bed & Breakfast in southern Tuscany and produces an extra-virgin olive oil called "Pace da Poggio Etrusco."

After earning a Master's Degree in Education/Administration, Pamela taught cooking and food service to students with disabilities in southern California for ten years. She took a leave of absence in 1986 to pursue a love for cooking which began with employment with one of L.A.'s finest chefs, Joachim Splichal. This led to a management position with Ma Cuisine Cooking School (the cooking school of Ma Maison restaurant, Los Angeles) for two years. When Ma Cuisine closed in 1989, Johns embarked on a freelance career that, over the last twenty years, has included teaching, food styling, cooking school administration, food writing, innkeeping, and agriculture.

In 1992, Johns and her husband, artist Courtney Johns [www.JohnnyJohns.com], moved to Santa Barbara where she started the cooking school at Jordano’s Marketplace. At this same time, she also began working as the representative of an Italian culinary program, and her first cookbook, Healthy Gourmet, was published. When Jordano’s Marketplace moved in 1996, the cooking school was closed. This created the opportunity to further develop the culinary workshops in Italy and devote more time to food writing.

A regular visitor to Italy since 1983, Johns and her family now live full-time in Tuscany where she coordinates wine and food workshops in various regions: Tuscany, Emilia-Romagna, Campania, Sicily, Veneto, Abruzzo, and Piemonte as well as managing an organic olive oil-producing farm and agriturismo (bed & breakfast) in Tuscany. Johns has been featured in Bon Appetit magazine (1996), Food & Wine magazine (Top Ten Cooking Schools in Italy, 2007), and Cooking Light magazine (2009).

Johns returns to the US once a year to do cooking classes and lectures about Italian artisanal food. Her audiences have included Smithsonian, IACP conferences, Roundtable for Women in Food Service, The American Institute of Wine & Food, Slow Food, and numerous cooking schools countrywide.

In addition to her cookbooks, Pamela has written articles/columns for Cuisine magazine, Vinotizie, Santa Barbara News-Press, and was food editor of Santa Barbara magazine for six years.

Before moving to Italy, Johns started and was the leader of the Santa Barbara Convivium of Slow Food. She served as an international juror for Slow Food, a member of the International Association of Culinary Professionals (IACP) and Women for WineSense, and Oldways Preservation and Exchange Trust. She has served on the National Board of Directors of The American Institute of Wine and Food (AIWF) and the Board of Directors of the Southern California Culinary Guild.

This author page uses material from the Wikipedia article "Pamela Sheldon Johns", which is released under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share-Alike License 3.0