DownloadThe Portobello Bookshop Gift Guide 2024

Laura Lea Author

Laura Lea is a certified holistic chef, consultant, and the founder/writer/photographer of the popular food website LLBalanced. After graduating from the University of Virginia, she discovered her passion for healthful cooking and nutrition while living a fast-paced corporate life in New York. She handed it all over to enroll at the Natural Gourmet Institute and headed back to her hometown of Nashville, Tennessee, to launch LLBalanced where she provides readers with affordable, comforting, and make-ahead family-friendly meals that are packed with nutrients and flavor. Her dishes are often remakes of Southern-influenced comfort food, with the intention that we can have the best of both worlds. She currently teaches cooking classes and consults with individuals, corporations, and restaurants on all aspects of healthy eating and nutrition while contributing articles and recipes for, among others, Mind Body Green, Nashville Lifestyles, Southern Living, Shape, and Greatist.com. Sean Brock is the founding chef of the award-winning Husk restaurants and the chef/owner of Audrey, opening next year in Nashville. His first book, Heritage, was the winner of the James Beard Award for Best American Cookbook and the IACP Julia Child First Book Award in 2015 and was called “the blue-ribbon chef cookbook of the year” by The New York Times. Brock won the James Beard Award for Best Chef Southeast in 2010 and was a finalist for Outstanding Chef in 2013, 2014, and 2015. His TV résumé includes Chef’s Table and The Mind of a Chef, for which he was nominated for an Emmy. Raised in rural Virginia, Brock is passionate about preserving and restoring heirloom ingredients. He lives in Nashville, Tennessee. Find him on Instagram @hseanbrock.