Erika Penzer Kerekes

Erika Kerekes cooks every day for family, friends and the occasional stranger who shows up at her door in Santa Monica, California. She taught herself to cook by watching PBS and the early days of the Food Network, prefers salty to sweet, and is still amazed that she lives in a place where food grows on trees in her backyard. Erika has two teenage sons who are also excellent cooks — the elder makes the best pork belly fried rice you've ever tasted, the younger specializes in deviled eggs. Erika co-founded and runs Food Bloggers Los Angeles, a group that's been meeting monthly (in person) since 2009 for potlucks, networking, education, community service and food crawls.