Sandra Bowens is a dedicated foodie with twenty-five years experience in the food service business. Busy with the website, she now occasionally gives cooking demonstrations and speaks about herbs and spices to groups. She lives in Washington State where she enjoys the wide variety of culinary delights that are available.

 

This website is a labor of love that has developed quite a following over the years. She says, "All of the recipes on the site are original but I hope that people will use them the same way they were developed: in the spirit of creating dishes that meet their own particular tastes."

 

"I've worked in a variety of situations that have allowed me the freedom to experiment with different flavors and ideas," she says. "I've also had the opportunity to work with incredible chefs who have taken the time to show me a few of their secrets."

 

Sandra once worked as a sales person for the Colorado Spice Company, a position that inspired a love for the subject lasting to this day.

 

Several years later, she turned this knowledge of herbs and spices into a newspaper column for the Reno Gazette-Journal.  That series of stories was the beginning of this website.

 

Although the site started with the single subject of cooking, over the years it has come to include a good bit of herb gardening information as well. Sandra became a Master Gardener in 2006 but she does not offer advice on the site as such. "It has only made me better and more precise about answering the many questions the site receives on the subject," she says.

 

Sandra has traveled extensively around the United States and the world. She lived in Mongolia for two years.  The most unusual, and really the only, spice the Mongols cook with is Bay Leaves.

 

In addition to the website Sandra has written a cookbook, Spiced Right: Flavorful cooking with herbs and spices, published in 2011.  Its 150 recipes are all original, some are variations on the website's recipes but most "just never found a home on the internet."

 

A Pinch Of... is dedicated to food lovers everywhere.