Christopher Kimball (born June 5, 1951) is an American chef, editor, publisher, and radio/TV personality.
Video Christopher Kimball
Early life and education
Kimball was born and raised in Westchester County, New York, the son of Mary Alice White and Edward Norris Kimball. The family had a cabin in southwestern Vermont.
He graduated from Phillips Exeter Academy and then Columbia University (1973) with a degree in Primitive Art.
Maps Christopher Kimball
Career
Early career
After graduating from Columbia, he went to work with his stepbrother in a publishing company. Soon after, he worked for The Center for Direct Marketing in Westport, Connecticut and also started taking cooking courses. After securing $100,000 in angel investments from friends and family, he started Cook's Magazine from a tiny office in Weston, Connecticut in 1980 when he was 29 years old. He sold the magazine to the Bonnier Group in 1989 and moved on to other publishing ventures.
America's Test Kitchen
Kimball was a co-founder and has been editor and publisher of America's Test Kitchen, which produces television and radio shows, and publishes magazines, including Cook's Illustrated, which Kimball launched in 1993. It also publishes Cook's Country magazine, which was launched in 2004, and former publisher of the now-defunct Cook's Magazine. The company's revenue comes from its readers, rather than advertisers, which differentiates him from his competitors.
Its cookbook publisher division is Two Pigs Farm. Boston Common Press, a private partnership between Kimball, Eliot Wadsworth II, and George P. Denny III, owns Kimball's publishing activities. Kimball also hosted the syndicated Public Television cooking shows America's Test Kitchen and Cook's Country from America's Test Kitchen.
On November 16, 2015, a news release from Boston Common Press, parent company of Cooks Country/Cooks Illustrated/America's Test Kitchen, announced the departure of Christopher Kimball. The 2016 TV programs had already been filmed and Kimball will appear as host, but his direct participation in the company was ending immediately. He remains a minority stockholder in the closely held company.
On October 2016 ATK sued Kimball for theft of intellectual property and its client list. According to the complaint:
Mr. Kimball spent the last year of his employment with America's Test Kitchen creating a new venture which literally and conceptually ripped off America's Test Kitchen. To quickly break into the marketplace with a viable and recognizable company, Mr. Kimball stole confidential information from America's Test Kitchen, solicited America's Test Kitchen's employees and outside relationships and misappropriated corporate opportunities belonging to America's Test Kitchen. He has carefully made "Christopher Kimball's Milk Street" in the image of "America's Test Kitchen" to convince potential customers that his new venture is a revamped and enhanced version of America's Test Kitchen. Along the way he has received substantial assistance from former America's Test Kitchen contributors, including employees Melissa Baldino and Christine Gordon; and consultant Deborah Broide. This case is not about legitimate competition -- it is about a profoundly disloyal fiduciary. America's Test Kitchen seeks damages for Mr. Kimball's various acts of disloyalty as aided and abetted by others; and permanent injunctive relief to prevent Mr. Kimball and his new company from exploiting information, assets, and opportunities stolen from America's Test Kitchen.
Christopher Kimball's Milk Street
In 2016, he embarked on a new venture, Christopher Kimball's Milk Street, located on Milk Street in Boston, Massachusetts.
On October 31, 2016, the company behind America's Test Kitchen and Cook's Illustrated Magazine filed a lawsuit against Kimball in Suffolk Superior Court, claiming that Kimball "literally and conceptually ripped off" his former employer. In the lawsuit, America's Test Kitchen claims that Kimball built his new venture while still on their payroll, using company resources in the form of recipes and databases to help mold Milk Street Kitchen into a direct competitor.
Other
He is the author of The Cook's Bible, The Yellow Farmhouse Cookbook, Dear Charlie, The Dessert Bible and Fannie's Last Supper, and is a columnist for the New York Daily News and the Boston-based Tab Communications.
Other television appearances include This Old House and the morning shows Weekend Today and The Early Show. He is a regular contributor on National Public Radio. On January 8, 2011, Kimball began hosting WGBH-FM's America's Test Kitchen Radio distributed by PRX.
Personal life
He has been married three times. He had a son and three daughters with his second wife, Adrienne. They divorced in December 2012. On June 30, 2013, Kimball married Melissa Lee Baldino, executive producer of the America's Test Kitchen television show.
References
Sources
- Metcalf, Stephen (October 13, 2003). "Sexy Food Nerds: Cooking geeks get hot on America's Test Kitchen". Slate.
- "In the Test Kitchen With Christopher Kimball". Powell's Books.
- "Tour the Test Kitchen: Cast Biographies". America's Test Kitchen. americastestkitchen.com.
Further reading
- Toasting Fannie Farmer With An Epic Victorian Feast, NPR, October 14, 2010
- Halberstadt, Alex, "The secret to Christopher Kimball's success", The New York Times Magazine, October 14, 2012.
External links
- Cook's Illustrated Magazine
- America's Test Kitchen
- Christopher Kimball on IMDb
Source of the article : Wikipedia
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