About Elana

Born to parents who defrosted, Elana Horwich began cooking as a young child because the kitchen was the only place in the house her mother couldn’t find her. In her 20’s she had an epiphany which took her to Italy for 5 years. There, she worked in bars, fell in and out of love, ate her way through the peninsula, and garnered life experiences that she would one day write about. While devouring every aspect of the local culture, she learned to cook from an Italian mamma in a Tuscan villa.

In 2010, back in her hometown of Los Angeles, Elana founded the Meal and a Spiel cooking school out of her parents’ kitchen, and now travels the country teaching people how to make phenomenal food, easily.

Elana holds a B.A. from Brown University and a Masters from Middlebury College in Florence, both in Jewish Italian Studies. She is a former high school history teacher who has also written and performed stand-up comedy and led experiential vacations throughout the boot of Italy.

Elana has appeared onGood Day LA, KCAL, KNBC, and KTLA  as an expert on healthy holiday cooking. She is a regular contributing writer for the Jewish Journal and her recipes have appeared in the Huffington Post, Tablet Magazine, The Daily Meal, and in newspapers throughout the country. She is the consulting chef for the UCLA Women’s Cardiovascular Center.

Her ultimate dream is to live in a world where everyone shares love with one another through cooking.