Missoula resident Greg Patent won second place in the Junior Division of the Pillsbury Bake-Off when he was a teenager. He has been a cookbook judge for the International Association of Culinary Professionals as well as a restaurant judge for the James Beard Foundation. He writes about food and profiles restaurant chefs for his local paper, the Missoulian , and he co-hosts a show about food on Montana Public Radio.

About the Author

Greg Patent is a food writer and cookbook author whose newest cookbook, A Baker's Odyssey: Celebrating Time-Honored Recipes from America's Rich Immigrant Heritage , which includes a companion DVD, will be published in December 2007, by John Wiley & Sons. His previous cookbook, Baking in America: Traditional and Contemporary Favorites from the Past 200 Years (Houghton Mifflin), won the 2003 James Beard Award for Best Baking Book of the Year and the World Gourmand Cookbook Award for Best Baking Book in the English Language. He is also the author of A Is for Apple , co-authored with his wife, Dorothy (Broadway Books, 1999), and numerous other cookbooks. Greg was a regular contributor to Cooking Light magazine for 13 years and served on its editorial board. For many years, he had his own cooking show, which aired on The Learning Channel, and he has also been a chef in two Montana restaurants.