Sara Foster: Chef, Entrepreneur and Cookbook Author
Sara Foster is one of the country’s most beloved and respected experts on simple, honest food prepared with fresh, local and seasonal ingredients. Her warm, relaxed approach to food and cooking resonates with consumers across the country for its emphasis on authenticity and ease. She is a firm believer that any home cook can prepare fresh, flavorful home-cooked meals with comfort and convenience.
Growing up in rural Tennessee, Sara developed a deep connection to food, family and community from the home-cooked meals by her mother, father, aunts, and grandparents. Her approach to cooking emphasizes the soulfulness and simplicity of home. To expand her skills and talents, Sara moved to New York to work as a part-time chef at SoHo Charcuterie, a New American cuisine restaurant specializing in inventive, fine, fresh food. During this time, she also worked as a caterer for Ronnie Davis of Washington Street.
After graduating from New York Restaurant School in 1981, Sara was asked to work alongside Martha Stewart as a chef for her catering company. Sara’s contributions to Stewart’s catering business won wide praise. She worked many long hours preparing for some of the most elaborate parties in the Northeast. Sara even assisted Stewart on several of her best-selling cookbooks.
In 1984, Sara married filmmaker and cinematographer Peter Sellers, and by 1985 she decided to focus on her own philosophy of food. She started a catering business in Greenwich, Connecticut, venturing back to her roots of simple, easy elegant food. Her recipes connected with the community, and Sara soon had a large following of loyal customers.
After several years of success with her catering business, Sara desired to pursue a lifelong dream of opening a gourmet food market café. She and her husband moved to Durham, North Carolina and opened Foster’s Market in 1990, introducing great seasonal prepared foods to eat in or take out, specialty grocery items, locally roasted coffee and select wines. The market café was such a success that Sara opened a second Foster’s Market location in 1998 in Chapel Hill.
Following the popularity of the market cafés, Sara wrote her first cookbook, The Foster’s Market Cookbook: Favorite Recipes for Morning, Noon, and Night (Random House Publishing, Oct. 2002), sharing more than 200 New Southern recipes found at both Foster’s Market locations. The cookbook won wide acclaim and left thousands of fans wanting more. Sara’s second cookbook, Fresh Every Day: More Great Recipes from Foster’s Market (Clarkson Potter), was released in May 2005 and has been a big hit, reaching the Top 10 on Amazon and the Los Angeles Times best seller lists. It was frequently named one of the Top 10 cookbooks of 2005. Sara’s third cookbook, Casual Cooking: Simple Fresh Recipes for the Way We Eat Today(Clarkson Potter), will be released in March 2007. It features more than 100 new recipes.
Sara Foster has been featured in the New York Times, Woman’s Day, Bon Appetit, Reader’s Digest, Southern Living, Martha Stewart Living Magazine, House Beautiful, Real Simple, Country Home, Redbook and many others. She also has appeared on NBC’s Today Show, Martha, From Martha’s Kitchen, Turner South’s Home Plate, NPR, PBS and QVC.
