ABOUT JOHN MICHAEL LERMA
Author of

JOHN MICHAEL LERMA’S GARDEN COUNTY “Where Everyone Is Welcome to Sit at the Table”

&

GARDEN COUNTY PIE "Sweet & Savory Delights from the Table of John Michael Lerma" (to be released November 2008)

John Michael Lerma grew up on a farm in North Dakota where he learned from his grandmother how to grow fruits and vegetables, prepare large meals, and can preserves.

John Michael was a winner at the 2005, 2006, 2007, & 2008 National Pie Championship in Celebration, Florida sponsored by Crisco. He is a frequent guest on KARE 11's Saturday Morning News Show and Showcase Minnesota. He also appears on WCCO Sunday Morning Live Show, KSTP, and Cities 97 morning show with BT & Lee.

He was featured on the Food Network Special--All American Pie Championship November 2006 baking his Vidalia Onion Pie, won a Bronze medal on the Food Network Challenge--The Great Pie Cook-Off, November 2007, and filmed yet another challenge for Food Nework that will air in November 2008.

John Michael is a Corporate Chef at Kitchen Window in Minneapolis,MN and a featured chef at The Chef's Gallery in Stillwater, MN. He is the director of Tuscan Gathering and Caribe Gathering Food and Beverage Adventures in Tuscany and the Caribbean. His second cookbook Garden County Pie--Sweet and Savory Delights from the Table of John Michael Lerma will be release November 2008 and he writes a two monthly columns for Lavender Magazine titled "Word of Mouth" & "Off the Eaten Path". John Michael is also a member of Slow Food USA. He lives in Saint Paul, Minnesota, with his partner Chad and their daughter Heather.

After surviving the 1997 flood that destroyed his hometown of Grand Forks, North Dakota, John Michael moved to the Twin Cities of Minnesota where he worked in management at a Fortune 500 company. John Michael turned to cooking, gardening, and food preservation as a form of relaxation and to recapture the life of contentment that he knew growing up in the Red River Valley. Eventually, John Michael began to enter his recipes in Minnesota State Fair competitions and has won numerous honors both locally and nationally.

John Michael received a degree in English from the University of North Dakota and has several short stories, poems, and plays published in regional and academic texts. He is a recipient of the Gladys Boen Award for Fiction.