Stella Parks facts for kids

Stella Parks is a famous American pastry chef and writer. She lives in Kentucky. She worked in many restaurants in Lexington. She also wrote for a food website called Serious Eats. In 2018, she won a big award for her cookbook, BraveTart: Iconic American Desserts. This book was a bestseller!

Early Life and Learning

Stella Parks was born in Kentucky. She grew up in a town called Versailles. She started working in restaurants when she was only 14 years old.

After finishing high school, Stella went to a special cooking school. It was called the Culinary Institute of America. She studied baking and pastry there. She finished her studies in 2002.

Working in Restaurants

Stella Parks worked in many different restaurants. These were mostly in the Lexington, Kentucky area. Some places she worked at were Wallace Station and the Holly Hill Inn.

She also spent some time in Tokyo, Japan. She moved there to learn Japanese. She called this time a "quarter-life crisis."

In 2010, she got a job at a new restaurant in Lexington. It was called Table 310. She became their pastry chef. In 2012, a magazine called Food & Wine named her one of America's Best New Pastry Chefs. This was because of her amazing work at Table 310.

Becoming a Writer

In 2010, Stella started her own food blog. It was called BraveTart. She worked on it with a friend who was a photographer.

A year later, she began writing for Serious Eats. This is a popular food website. She wrote a column called "BraveTart" there. She became a senior editor at the site. People at Serious Eats even called her their "pastry wizard"! She kept living in Lexington while working for them. Stella wrote for Serious Eats from 2011 to 2019. For three of those years, she was their pastry editor. After that, she became an editor emeritus at the site.

Stella's work mixes baking with history and science. She is known for making very exact recipes. These recipes often make classic American desserts even better. She sometimes creates "copycat" recipes for popular childhood treats.

In 2017, Stella published her first cookbook. It was titled BraveTart: Iconic American Desserts. She spent six years working on this book. She did a lot of research into old recipes. She also tested her recipes many, many times. The cookbook celebrates famous American desserts. It also looks at how big food companies changed home baking.

The BraveTart cookbook became a New York Times bestseller. Critics loved it too! A magazine called Saveur said it was "the most groundbreaking book on baking in years." Bon Appétit called it "one of the greatest dessert books of our time." In 2018, Stella's BraveTart: Iconic American Desserts won a James Beard Foundation Award. This award was for the Best Baking and Dessert Book.

After leaving Serious Eats in 2019, Stella took a break. She called this her "hermit era." She wanted a life with fewer deadlines.