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| Weir Cooking in the City: Production Staff Biographies |
Joanne Weir, Host and Co-Producer
Joanne was awarded the inaugural IACP Cooking Teacher Award of Excellence in 1997. She is the author of award-winning You Say Tomato, Broadway Books 1998 and From Tapas to Meze, Crown, 1994, both of which were nominated for James Beard Cookbook Awards. From Tapas to Meze was also selected by Julia Child as one of her twelve personal favorites out of 1000 cookbooks published in 1994. Joanne authored the four-part series titled Seasonal Celebrations, released in 1997 by Williams-Sonoma. Joanne also is a regular contributor to national magazines and newspapers.
Joanne's professional experience includes five years of cooking at Chez Panisse Restaurant in Berkeley, California. Her professional training includes a year of full-time study and apprenticeship with Madeleine Kamman in New England and France after which she was awarded a Master Chef Diploma. Joanne tours and teaches extensively throughout the United States, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, Italy, and France, spending 7 to 8 months per year teaching all over the world. She is a member of the International Association of Culinary Professionals, Women Chefs and Restaurateurs, the James Beard Foundation and the San Francisco Professional Food Society.
Joanne's association with food and enthusiasm for cooking comes from a long of chefs. Her great-grandmother operated Pilgrim's Pantry, a restaurant in Boston at the turn of the century, and her mother, also a professional chef and caterer, worked with cookbook author Charlotte Turgeon for ten years. Joanne continues in their footsteps. She holds a Fine Arts Degree in Art Education from the University of Massachusetts and taught Fine Arts in Boston for five years before pursuing a career in food.
Joanne has an extensive culinary background with regards to the history, theory and technique of Mediterranean cuisine, as well as the regional foods of the United States, particularly California. These elements are brought to life in her creative, thoughtful, enthusiastic classes, written articles for magazines and periodicals, and television series.
Tina Salter, Series Producer
Tina Salter has been producing public television cooking shows for KQED Public Broadcasting for the last 15 years. Her production credits include such award-winning series as Yan Can Cook as well as five series with Jacques Pépin including Jacques Pépin Celebrates! She has worked on Mollie Katzen's Cooking Show with Molly Katzen and Look and Cook with Anne Willan with Anne Willan of La Varenne. Additional credits include Cooking at the Academy and Yvonnes Cookbook. A graduate of the Cordon Bleu Cooking School in London, Salter also is a cookbook author herself, having written Nuts, Sweet and Savory Recipes from Diamond of California, as well as contributing to the production of assorted other cookbooks. She is currently working on two new texts.
Monica Caston, Director
Monica Caston's career in music, film and television features more than 20 years' experience in directing, producing and creative consulting in the global entertainment industry. Her extensive work in music, television, video and film ranges from high-profile world tours to concert and TV specials, live multi-format event production, and documentaries. She has worked with such renowned chefs as Jacques Pépin in his series Jacques Pépin Celebrates! and with entertainment icons U2, Rolling Stones, Michael Jackson and Bette Midler.
Christine Swett, Culinary Associate Producer
Christine Swett has experience on a number of premier public television cooking shows ranging from Jacques Pépin; Cooking with Claudine and Jacques Pépin Celebrates! to three series of Mollie Katzen's Cooking Show, Cooking at the Academy, and the award-winning Martin Yan's Asia. She has also worked with a number of renowned author-chefs, developing, testing and editing new recipes. She holds a B.A. in Journalism from the University of Oregon.
Elizabeth Pepin, Associate Producer
Elizabeth Pepin currently works as an associate producer and research and development associate at KQED. Pepin has more than six years of production experience in the Bay Area and has won four regional Emmy Awards for her documentary film work. Her numerous projects for KQED and PBS include: American Family Portraits, American Experience: The Year 1900, Bay Window: Hope on the Street and The Fillmore: The Hidden Cities of San Francisco. In addition to being a filmmaker, Pepin is a photographer and a journalist. She holds a B.A. in Journalism from San Francisco State University.
Laura Batistich, Assistant to the Producer
Laura Batistich has worked as associate producer on the PBS series Michael Chiarello's Napa and assisted on the series Jacques Pépin Celebrates! at KQED. She also lived in Italy for 10 years, where she produced local television news stories and documentaries in the Italian Alps. She holds a B.A. in English from Tufts University.
Danny McGuire, Executive Producer
Writing, directing, producing and executive producing film and video productions for nearly 30 years for both commercial and public television stations and as an independent filmmaker, Danny McGuire holds principal content credit on more than 200 original television programs or series and more than 50 non-broadcast videos and films. Among his nearly 60 industry honors are various Gold Medals, Regional and National Prime-time Emmys, Golden Eagles, a Peabody, a DuPont/Columbia award, and an Oscar nomination. Most notable among his national credits are the documentary specials The Spirit of Allensworth, Great Wall Across the Yangtze, Cadillac Desert, Fear and Favor in the Newsroom, The Men Who Sailed the Liberty Ships, and The West Virginia Mine Wars, and the performance programs Blue Suede Shoes, Ode to Phaedra, Sweeney Todd in Concert and, for PBS's Great Performances, The Merry Widow and Othello. McGuire is a Board Governor for the San Francisco Chapter of the National Academy of Television Arts and Sciences and a frequent Media Program Fund advisor for the National Endowment for the Humanities. He is also an occasional guest speaker at local schools and industry conferences about the public television system.
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