Chef Lisa graduated culinary school at Kendall College Evanston in 2003. Before Lisa became a chef instructor at The Chopping Block, she worked in numerous restaurants around Chicago including Naha (where she met her husband), Spiaggia, Custom House and opened Acanto in 2014. When not in the kitchen you can usually find Lisa curled up with a great bottle of wine and a good book or eating out at a new restaurant with her husband.
Recent Posts
A Chocoholic's Guide to Cacao
I want to let you all in on a not-so-secret confession: I am a chocoholic! They say a day without chocolate is like day with no sunshine, but I wouldn’t know because I eat a bit of chocolate every ...
Spring has arrived and with it comes one of my favorite vegetables: asparagus! While asparagus is luckily usually found year-round in grocery stores, like most produce, it has a peak season. You will ...
There is nothing more special to me than perfectly light, fluffy, pillowy gnocchi! Sometimes that texture can be hard to achieve, though. I know I have eaten my fair share of dense and tough gnocchi ...
I am so excited to announce that The Chopping Block is finally offering a sous vide cooking class! It never really made sense for us in the past to offer this type of class in person due to the ...
Most of us are fortunate to be able to enjoy all types of citrus all year long. You may not know this, but citrus season is actually during winter. Citrus is the perfect little pick me up to get you ...
One of my very favorite classes to teach at The Chopping Block is our Flavor Dynamics class. In this class, we explore taste versus flavor. It is an in-depth look of all the five basic tastes: salty, ...
When I want to learn, teach, or write about a new culinary technique, I tend to go down various rabbit holes of online research, cookbooks, recipe testing, and trial and error to figure out how to ...
You can’t get very far in America without running into a donut shop. We have embraced the history of this dessert found all over the world and made it into our own. Of course, doughnuts as we know ...
The title of this blog isn't just a throwback to the 80’s, it's a deep dive into one of my favorite root vegetables: the potato. This tuber can be utilized in a multitude of different ways, which ...
I love making lasagna, and it has been a Christmas tradition in our house for as long as I can remember. For Christmas Eve, we always celebrate the Feast of the Seven Fishes, but on Christmas day, we ...
