Nina Simonds is an award-winning journalist and author of eleven books, who is one of the country’s top authorities on Asian cooking with a special focus on health and lifestyle.  In 2001, Newsweek Magazine named her one of America's Top Twenty-Five Asia Hands. Her last book, Spices of Life: Simple and Delicious Recipes for Great Health not only received a James Beard award, but was selected by Cooking Light Magazine as their number one choice in the health category for cookbooks written in the last 25 years. Her best-selling Asian Noodles and A Spoonful of Ginger also won both an International Association of Cooking Professionals’ and a James Beard Foundation Book Award in the health category. Simonds is the recipient of three James Beard Awards. She also completed a rigorous one- year course to become a Certified Whole Health Educator and Coach at the National Institute of Whole Health, one of the most highly respected schools in the U.S. by prominent doctors, nutritionists, and dieticians. 

Since receiving her certification, Simonds has overseen “Healthy Eating” Initiatives with private clients and with corporate employees at Legal Seafoods and she has worked with Sodexo Disney World to introduce their Wellness Incentive to corporate chefs and employees. She has also given talks at the Dana Farber Cancer Center, at the Northeast Yankee Dental Association annual conference, and for private groups.    

At the age of nineteen, Nina Simonds traveled to Taipei, Taiwan to study Chinese cuisine and culture. She lived and studied there for three and a half years under the direction of Chinese master chefs and helped translate and write three cookbooks from Chinese to English with Huang Su Huei, a prominent figure in Chinese cooking in the Far East. Simonds is fluent in the Mandarin dialect and also holds a Grande Diplome in Classic French Cuisine from LaVarenne, Ecole de Cuisine in Paris.

Her food/health/lifestyle website with innovative video blogs (www.ninasimonds.com) which highlighted some of the country’s foremost nutritionists, celebrity chefs, and cooking tutorials, was launched in February of 2006 and was featured in The New York Times, The Washington Post, The Boston Globe, and on The Daily Beast website. She was also a Correspondent / Contributing Editor for Gourmet Magazine for seven years and had been a contributor there since 1981. In addition, Simonds was a regular contributor to The New York Times for over 25 years and to O Magazine for 5 years. Her articles have appeared in The Wall Street Journal, The Boston Globe, Epicurious.com, The Washington Post, The Los Angeles Times, Cooking Light, Bon Appetit, Family Circle, and Self magazine.

Simonds was an active member of the Nutrition Roundtable at the Harvard School of Public Health for ten years, helping to build and improve their website, www.nutritionsource.com.

Simonds has taught classes in cooking schools across the United States and Canada for the last 40 years. She also taught classes and workshops with Dr. Walter Willett, Chairman of Nutrition of the Harvard School of Public Health and Dr. Andrew Weil, Director of the Center for Integrative Medicine at the University of Arizona. 

Simonds has appeared on television programs throughout the United States including The Today Show and Martha Stewart Living, as well as on various programs on the Food Network. She has also been featured on National Public Radio’s “The Diane Rehm Show,” “Morning Edition,” and “Fresh Air”.

THANK YOU TO MY WONDERFUL PHOTOGRAPHER

Romulo A. Yanes is an American photographer who was born in Cuba in 1965. After finishing college, he became the staff photographer for Gourmet magazine. Romulo shot most of the photos for Nina’s articles in Gourmet and all of the photos for “ Simple Asian Meals”, which are shown on this website.  His photos also have been featured in Bon Appétit, Martha Stewart Living and Everyday Food, Health, and became a regular contributor to Williams Sonoma Cooks Catalogue.