Carolyn Jung is an award-winning food and wine writer based in Silicon Valley, Calif. She is the recipient of a James Beard award for feature writing about restaurants/chefs, a Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism award of excellence for diversity writing, an award from the American Association of Sunday and Features Editors, and numerous first-place honors from the Association of Food Journalists and the Peninsula Press Club. She has judged a bevy of food contests, including the biggest of them all, the Pillsbury Bake-Off.
For 11 years, she was the food writer/editor for the San Jose Mercury News. She also has been a contributor to the “Good Living” section of Gourmet magazine and to the book, The Slow Food Guide to San Francisco and the Bay Area. Over the years, her work on other topics has been published in the Fort Lauderdale Sun-Sentinel, the Boston Globe, and the Portland Oregonian.
Jung is a freelance food writer for the San Francisco Chronicle, San Francisco magazine, Coastal Living, Food Arts, Via, East Bay Express, Oakland magazine, Alameda magazine, and other publications. She ghost-writes and tests recipes for cookbook authors. She lends expertise as a food industry/food trend consultant. Additionally, she was a judge for the 2009 James Beard Foundation Cookbook Awards.
In 2008, she created FoodGal.com, a food and wine blog that features interviews with celebrated chefs, reviews of intriguing cookbooks and products, the scoop on new restaurants, irresistible recipes, and her singular take on how food touches every aspect of our lives. In 2009, her blog was awarded second place for “best food blog” in the nation by the Association of Food Journalists.
A native San Franciscan, she’s always been passionate about food -- from the rarefied, breathtaking cuisine at French Laundry in Yountville to the intricate morsels of dim sum at Yank Sing in San Francisco, to the plain and simple, yet utterly satisfying tangle of ramen and fresh clams at Tanto in Sunnyvale. She’s obsessed with all things ginger, almond paste, and chocolate. And she’s a sucker for a well-made cookie.