ABOUT

About Jillian, creator of Food Folks and Fun

Jillian, the creator behind Food Folks and FunI’m Jillian, the creator, and author of Food Folks and Fun. I have over 30 years of experience cooking for others. There’s nothing I love more than cooking for my family. Food is love, and cooking isn’t just putting a meal on a plate: It’s putting a little part of myself into that meal.

My culinary roots sprouted when I was 8-years-old, making my first batch of pancakes with my dad. Since then, I have continued making delicious home-cooked meals and treats as one of the ways I show my love and appreciation for folks.

My Teaching Outlet

I love learning about food, dish origins, and even the chemistry of baking. As a former teacher, I can’t help but to pass along everything that I’ve learned and the recipes that I’ve developed over the years. Food Folks and Fun is my platform of choice for sharing my cooking and baking expertise with the world.

Recipe Testing

Cannoli shells filled with cannoli cream.

I take cooking seriously. I rigorously test every single recipe that appears on my site. I don’t post a recipe unless I’ve gotten it just right. Take my Cannoli Cream recipe for example, I spent over a year and a half testing the recipe. Consequently, it’s the most visited recipe on Food Folks and Fun!

Recipe Inspiration

Finished pizza sliced for serving.

I’ve lived in a few different places; Connecticut, Utah, New Mexico, Virginia, Arizona, Rhode Island, California, Japan, and South Korea to be exact. Each of these places have influenced my recipes.

For example, my New Mexico Posole recipe is inspired by the meal the PTO at the middle school I taught at in Albuquerque would make for the teachers every Christmas. My New York-Style Thin Crust Pizza is a nod to the amazing pizza I had growing up back East. Beef Negimaki is a recipe that I learned how to make at a Japanese cooking class while living in Japan, and my Grandma’s Gloumpki recipe is the food of my Polish ancestors.

Traveling and Recipe Creation

Jillian and kids at Shanghai Disneyland Jillian in Europe

I LOVE to travel (I’ve been to every single Disney theme park in the world!). Every Christmas season you can find me in Europe eating my way through Christmas Markets. My yearly pilgrimage has inspired recipes like Kinderpunsch and Hungarian Goulash.

If I can’t take all of my family members, friends, and readers along with me to new places, then the least I can do is share recipe inspiration from those places.

About Food Folks and Fun

Food, Folks and Fun logo with a yellow lemon image on the left.

“Food Folks and Fun” was the motto my family adopted while growing up. Our house was the “party house”. Every holiday, birthday, and summer weekend, we’d have people over for swimming, board games, croquet, and FOOD!

Even to this day, we are all about breaking bread together and having fun at every twist and turn. When it came time to choose a name for my website, it was a no-brainer that Food Folks and Fun was it.

A Decade of Blogging

Cookies on a plate with pretzels and M&Ms around it.

I started Food Folks and Fun in the fall of 2010, and to say I had no clue what I was doing when I first started would be an understatement! I’ve learned SO much about running a website, online marketing, cooking, recipe creation, being a boss, managing a team, and myself along the way. I jokingly tell people that I’ve earned a master’s degree in blogging by how much I’ve taught and trained myself and others to do over the last decade.

Working with Food Folks and Fun

Food Folks and Fun is growing at a rapid pace, and I’d love to work with your company or brand. I’ve done a bit of everything, including product reviews and recipe development. To learn more about what I offer, check out my PR & Media page.


Follow me on Instagram, Pinterest, and Facebook for more great content that you won’t find on my website. Questions? Contact me below!

Permission to share content: If you wish to use my content on your blog or website for a roundup, then please choose one image from that post and link it back to my original URL with proper credit. Thank you!