About Us

The Food Blog Mafia is represented by Annie, Kelli, Kelly, & Stephanie.

ANNIE LEHRER is a nurse practitioner who is now a farm girl and soon to be cheesemaker. Born and raised in St. Louis, she has been in the kitchen with her mother and grandmother since she can remember. Having a house full of family, friends and delicious food is her idea of a perfect way to spend an evening.  A former travel nurse, she has had the opportunity to live in various cities across the U.S. exploring diverse culinary scenes.  Food, and everything associated with it..from earth to belly is her passion. She dwells in downtown St. Louis with her cheesemonger husband. When not putting in clinical hours at the hospital, she is swillin’ craft beer with her beer nerd crew, knitting, writing recipes, planning her victory garden, keeping up with the St. Louis art scene and spending time with her big Lebanese family.  She loves cheese.  She writes about all things cheese on her blog The Cheesemonger’s Wife . She’s funny as hell. You can try and keep up with her crazy life on Twitter.

KELLI BEST-OLIVER is a education doctoral student who loves eating and writing, hence food blogging.  Originally from Iowa, she is FBM’s resident locavore/gardening geek who obsesses over seed catalogues and loves nothing better than a juicy homegrown tomato sprinkled with sea salt.  Kelli cooks a lot of vegetarian food, but will devour a great burger and loves roasting chicken. She previously wrote the “Novice Foodie” column on the Riverfront Times website every Tuesday, documenting her adventures becoming a full-fledged foodie, and also maintains a personal blog, South City Confidential (a January 2011 finalist for best personal blog in St. Louis), where she bitches constantly in between periods of dormancy. She holds down South City with her husband and three pets, and, when not eating cheese, is either studying, going to rock shows, knitting, drinking beer at disreputable establishments, or inundating herself with pop culture (she also writes for Mamapop).  Actually, often she eats cheese while doing those things. You can follow her on Twitter.

KELLY GREEN GARDNER makes a living teaching high school English.  She makes a life teaching cooking classes.  She is constantly trying new recipes and blogging about her experiments at Sounding My Barbaric Gulp, which was named a finalist for best food blog in St. Louis by The Riverfront Times in January 2011. She occasionally writes feature articles for Sauce Magazine.  She is a food snob.  Cooking and eating are her passions, and she is quite obsessive about it.  But, as much as she likes expensive champagne & caviar, she also has a weakness for cheap chips & dips.  Her favorite foods are pastas, soups, and anything else in the “comfort food” category.  She never diets and refuses to make excuses for her excessive use of butter and cream.  Her overall favorite meal is simply a wedge of stinky, oozing cheese, a loaf of crusty bread, some olives, and a bottle of dry red wine.  She proudly represents the East Side, as she is the only one in the FBM who lives in Illinois.  She’s on Twitter, too.

STEPHANIE TOLLE is otherwise known as Iron Stef. In reality, she’s Stephanie, with a “ph”…not a real Stef and not a real chef. She is really into all things food, though. Her blog, Iron Stef, focuses on stuff she cooks at home, for the most part. Iron Stef was named the Best Food Blog in St. Louis by The Riverfront Times in January 2011. She loves dining out at some of the awesome restaurants we have here in St. Louis, too. Especially with the FBM girls! She is from, and currently lives in, North St. Louis County. Her favorite things to cook are roasted chicken, curries, and all things asian. Besides Iron Stef, she also has a web comic called Skank Ham, inspired by her love of both pork and puns. Besides food, the other loves of her life are her huge family, her kitten Noodles, crafts, movies, live music, & amateur photography. Does this read like a Match.com profile? Maybe that’s ’cause she’s the only single member of FBM. One at a time, fellas.  You can begin courting her through her Twitter profile.

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