Carolina Gelen

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Carolina Gelen is a Romanian-born American recipe developer and cookbook author. Her debut cookbook won a 2025 James Beard Award.

Contents

Early life and education

Gelen was born and raised in Transylvania, Romania, after the Romanian Revolution; the family had a one-bedroom apartment. [1] [2] [3] [4] She has said the family was poor and that thrifting was "a huge part of my life". [2] [3] Her family is of Romanian and Hungarian descent. [3] She learned to cook from her mother, an innovative home cook, learning to develop her own recipes. [2] [3] She has said she improved her English by watching cooking shows such as MasterChef. [5]

Geleter studied computer science in college in Romania and found work in the field, but did not enjoy it. [2] [4] [4]

Career

Gelen began posting recipe to social media while still living in Romania. [4]

In 2018, when she was in her early 20s, Gelen travelled to the United United States on a J-1 visa to work in restaurants in ski resorts in Park City. [3] [1] [2] [4] She returned to the US to work multiple years. [1] [4] She continued posting recipes, developed a following, and was approached by New York Times Cooking, Food52, and other cooking websites. [2] [3] [1] Because her following was primarily based in the United States, she eventually began the immigration process, immigrating in 2021 [4] [6] By 2022 her combined social media audience was more than 2 million. [5] [4]

Gelen specializes in developing recipes based in traditional Eastern European, Middle Eastern, and Jewish cuisines for home cooks in the US. [3] [7] Many of the recipes she creates are based on complex recipes that require multiple steps, sometimes over multiple days, which she simplifies to make more appealing and accessible to American home cooks. [3] [8] [4] [9]

In 2024 Gelen's first cookbook, Pass the Plate: 100 Delicious, Highly Shareable, Everyday Recipes, was published by Clarkson Potter. [2] [3] [5] Eater named it one of their best fall cookbooks of 2024. [9] The book won a 2025 James Beard Award. [2] [3]

Personal life

As of 2025 she lives in Heber City, Utah. [2] She is Jewish. [7]

References

  1. 1 2 3 4 Gelen, Carolina (4 October 2024). "3 Warming Dishes for Crisp Fall Days". New York Times . Archived from the original on 19 August 2025. Retrieved 29 September 2025.
  2. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 Doerfler, Grace (24 June 2025). "Heber City chef wins James Beard award for debut cookbook". KPCW . Archived from the original on 25 June 2025. Retrieved 29 September 2025.
  3. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 Szakacs, Sorina (16 July 2025). "How a Utah cookbook author built a big online community, and won the Oscar of the food world". The Salt Lake Tribune . Archived from the original on 20 July 2025. Retrieved 29 September 2025.
  4. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 Hatzfeld, Katie (16 June 2025). "'From J-1 to James Beard': Heber City-based cookbook author takes top award". Park Record . Archived from the original on 18 June 2025. Retrieved 29 September 2025.
  5. 1 2 3 Isaac, Paulina Jayne (19 September 2024). "Food Influencer Carolina Gelen Learned How to Speak English from Watching Cooking Shows — Now She Has Millions of Followers [Exclusive]". The Kitchn . Archived from the original on 19 September 2024. Retrieved 29 September 2025.
  6. ↑ Puckett, Susan. "Try these eclectic recipes rooted in Romanian resourcefulness". The Atlanta Journal-Constitution . ISSN   1539-7459. Archived from the original on 26 December 2024. Retrieved 29 September 2025.
  7. 1 2 Palmer, Jordan; DANA, LAUREN (9 June 2021). "7 Jewish food TikTokers to follow ASAP". St. Louis Jewish Light . Archived from the original on 20 January 2025. Retrieved 29 September 2025.
  8. ↑ Bakshi, Pema. "The Next-Gen Chefs To Follow On TikTok & Instagram". Refinery29 . Archived from the original on 29 May 2024. Retrieved 29 September 2025.
  9. 1 2 Makalintal, Bettina (9 September 2024). "The 16 Best Cookbooks of Fall 2024". Eater . Archived from the original on 17 August 2025. Retrieved 29 September 2025.
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