ABOUT
Erin Gleeson is the New York Times bestselling cookbook author and artist behind the lifestyle brand The Forest Feast. After working in New York as a food photographer, she left the city for a cabin in the woods which took her work in a whole new direction. Inspired by local California produce, she has now created 5 vegetarian cookbooks and a line of products that showcase her unique blend of photography overlaid with watercolor illustrations and hand lettering. Erin’s goal is to inspire people to be creative at home, to cook more with vegetables, and to share meals together.
My Story
Welcome to the woods! Here at The Forest Feast I share artful entertaining ideas, style inspiration and simple, vegetable-focused recipes illustrated by my own watercolors, hand-lettering and photography.
I grew up in the middle of an apple orchard in rural Sonoma County, CA, in the 1980s. My family was vegetarian and we cooked a lot with vegetables from our garden. I spent a lot of time outdoors and remember so well the sweet smell of the apple blossoms in spring, picking warm blackberries off the vine in August, and how soft the dirt felt in the orchard after it had been tilled. It's that type of connection to a place, and to the land, that has been a creative and grounding source of inspiration to me now, living in the woods, so many years later.
After majoring in art in college in Santa Barbara, I moved to New York to "be a photographer". After assisting other photographers and interning at magazines, I went back to school for my MFA in photography at SVA. I then shot for cookbooks, magazines, top chefs and restaurants, The New York Times Dining section, and The James Beard Foundation and I taught photography to college students at The Fashion Institute of Technology for 4 years.
My husband Jonathan is from New York City and we met when I was living in Manhattan during grad school. In 2011, just before we got married, he accepted a job as a rabbi in Silicon Valley which prompted our move to California. Unexpectedly we found an ad for a lovely little cabin in the woods that took my work in a direction I would have never imagined. I started my Forest Feast blog when we moved to the cabin just as a new personal project. Inspired by local, seasonal ingredients in our weekly CSA box, I created (and continue to make) “photographic recipe illustrations” that are mostly vegetarian and laid out visually. I am so grateful that the blog led to books and with it all, I hope to inspire healthy recipe ideas anyone can make– dishes that are easy enough after a long day at work, yet impressive enough for a party.
In 2014, my first cookbook, The Forest Feast, (a New York Times Bestseller!) was published by Abrams and it was a dream project come true. The Forest Feast for Kids (a book for kids to cook from) is an adaptation of my first book and was released February 2016. My third book, The Forest Feast Gatherings (an entertaining focused book with menus for different occasions), came out September 2016. My 4th book, The Forest Feast Mediterranean was released in September 2019. My 5th book, The Forest Feast Road Trip, comes out in Spring 2022 and is all about eating and road tripping through California. In addition to working on The Forest Feast blog and cookbooks, I also have a line of Forest Feast products and gift items, and I teach Photography in Continuing Studies at Stanford University.
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Click below for my Google Talk, a 45-min presentation I did in 2019 at Google HQ in Mountain View, CA. Using a slideshow, I tell the story of how I arrived at creating cookbooks:
For more info on me, please check out my press page.
From our neck of the woods to yours, welcome to The Forest Feast!