Celebrity chef speaker Melissa d’Arabian got her big break when she was selected as a contender to compete on the fifth season of The Next Food Network Star in 2009. It came as a surprise to viewers and Melissa, herself, when the stay-at-home mother of four who had no formal culinary training beat the other nine competitors and won the cooking competition. Iron Chef Bobby Flay and Food Network executives Bob Tuschman and Susie Fogelson served as judges for the fifth season of the show.

Since being named The Next Food Network Star, Chef d’Arabian has become the host of her very own Food Network television series, Ten Dollar Dinners where she is able to use her personal experience and knowledge reach her target audience, stay-at-home moms, sharing her budgeting techniques and cooking skills when cooking healthy meals for the entire family. In 2012, Melissa began hosting her second show on the Cooking Channel, Drop 5 lbs. with Good Housekeeping where she helps viewers who are overweight by offering healthy recipes and tips to losing weight. She has also made countless television appearances on other shows, including Chopped, The Best Thing I Ever Ate, The Talk, Food Network Challenge, and NBC’s Today Show.

Melissa d’Arabian is a New York Times Bestselling author of her first cookbook, Ten Dollar Dinners: 140 Recipes and Tips to Elevate Simple, Fresh Meals Any Night of the Week, which was released in 2012. The bestselling cookbook offers recipes with delicious ingredients that home cooks can purchase for under $10 and will make enough food to feed a family of four. Melissa supports the American Foundation for Suicide Prevention, a cause very close to Melissa’s heart after losing her mother to suicide at age 20.

Read more at: http://www.foodnetwork.com/chefs/melissa-darabian/bio.html?oc=linkback