Judi Gallagher has a passion for preserving her family’s hand-written recipes. The Sarasota chef says cooking and baking have been therapeutic during some of the most challenging times in her life, including a tough childhood with her father who suffered from mental illness, a contentious divorce and her adult son’s debilitating health condition. So for Judi, her family’s hand-written recipes are more valuable than a pound of saffron or the rarest white truffles. 

Judi is a chef, TV personality, entrepreneur and the author of Reflections & Recipes of Chef Judi. In our conversation, Judi shared the story of how she started baking as a young girl and advice for preserving your own treasured recipes.

You can read much more of Judi’s incredible life story in Dalia's profile of her. It appears in the summer issue of FORUM, the magazine of Florida Humanities.

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