Elise Johnson is a Raleigh, North Carolina-based chef.

Chef Elise is well-known for her cooking classes, TV cooking segments “Cooking With Elise”, her blogging at www.CookingWithElise.com, as Chef Spokesperson for BJ’s Wholesale Club and for her commitment to the communities she lives in. Elise enjoys the challenge of competing against highly trained chefs and also judging cooking competitions. Her commitment to helping families understand the power of cooking and eating together has been embraced by corporate companies like BJ’s Wholesale Clubs, Quintiles, Cuisinart, Dean and Deluca, Lodge Cast Iron Manufacturing Company and Williams and Sonoma.

Chef Elise’s first cookbook, You Never Cook Alone, was released in mid-April, 2012.

The book’s sub-title “Stirring Memories, Feeding Souls and Building Legacies for the Well Fed Family” reflects Elise’s mission of helping families understand and capture the powerful energy that cooking and eating together contributes to building healthy families and friendships.

Chef Elise grew up near Boston. A speech impediment kept Elise from talking until she was seventeen. Her Portuguese grandmother’s kitchen became her refuge. Elise’s grandmother, who spoke little English, taught her to cook with the most important ingredient of all – love.

Elise put that same love into the meals she created for her own family. At her friends’ request, Elise began teaching her friends, children and college students how to cook. Now through personal appearances, classes, TV, Internet and her new cookbook, Elise shares that love with others.

In an amazing transformation, the child-who-never-spoke became the funny, passionate and outspoken chef families adore.