Carla Lalli Music is an American chef, cookbook author, and
YouTube personality
A YouTuber is an online personality and/or influencer who produces videos on the video-sharing platform YouTube, typically posting to their personal YouTube channel. The term was first used in the English language in 2006.
Influence
Influen ...
. She was a food editor at large of ''
Bon Appétit'' and was known for her appearances in videos produced for
the magazine's YouTube channel, most notably as the host of ''Back-to-Back Chef''. Music left the magazine in 2020. This was in response to allegations that ''Bon Appétit'' and
Condé Nast Entertainment
Condé Nast Entertainment (also known as CNE) is a production and distribution studio with film, television, social and online video, and virtual reality content.
CNE is headquartered at 1 World Trade Center.
Background
Previously, Condé Nast ...
engaged in racial discrimination.
Biography
Music was born to an
Italian-American
Italian Americans ( it, italoamericani or ''italo-americani'', ) are Americans who have full or partial Italian ancestry. The largest concentrations of Italian Americans are in the urban Northeast and industrial Midwestern metropolitan areas, w ...
family, where her mother worked as a food critic at ''New West'' and as a cookbook editor at
Simon & Schuster
Simon & Schuster () is an American publishing company and a subsidiary of Paramount Global. It was founded in New York City on January 2, 1924 by Richard L. Simon and M. Lincoln Schuster. As of 2016, Simon & Schuster was the third largest publ ...
.
Music studied at
Brown University
Brown University is a private research university in Providence, Rhode Island. Brown is the seventh-oldest institution of higher education in the United States, founded in 1764 as the College in the English Colony of Rhode Island and Providenc ...
, where she graduated with a degree in Modern Culture and Media in 1994,
and later attended the
French Culinary Institute.
She worked in
food service
The foodservice (US English) or catering (British English) industry includes the businesses, institutions, and companies which prepare meals outside the home. It includes restaurants, school and hospital cafeterias, catering operations, and many ...
for over a decade, notably as a line chef and later kitchen manager for
Rocco DiSpirito
Rocco DiSpirito (born November 19, 1966) is an American chef and reality television personality based in New York City, known for starring in the program '' The Restaurant''.
Early life and education
DiSpirito was born in Queens, New York. He gr ...
,
as the first general manager of
Shake Shack
Shake Shack is an American fast casual restaurant chain based in New York City. It started out as a hot dog cart inside Madison Square Park in 2001, and its popularity steadily grew. In 2004, it received a permit to open a permanent kiosk with ...
,
and as an instructor in culinary management at the
Institute for Culinary Education.
She transitioned to
food writing
Food writing is a genre of writing that focuses on food and includes works by food critics, food journalists, chefs and food historians.
Definition
Food writers regard food as a substance and a cultural phenomenon. John T. Edge, an American food ...
in 2009,
and served as an editor for ''
Everyday Food'' until 2011.
Music was hired as a features editor for ''
Bon Appétit'' that same year, and was later promoted to be the magazine's food director.
In January 2020, she moved her role to food editor at large to focus on her 2nd cookbook.
Music first appeared in videos on the
''Bon Appétit'' YouTube channel in 2015, and would make regular appearances in recipe preparation videos in the subsequent years.
In 2018, Music became the host of ''Back-to-Back Chef'', a
web series
A web series (also known as a web show) is a series of scripted or non-scripted online videos, generally in episodic form, released on the Internet, which first emerged in the late 1990s and became more prominent in the early 2000s. A single i ...
in which she instructs a celebrity in preparing a dish while facing away from each other and using only verbal instructions.
Notable guests on the series have included
Natalie Portman
Natalie Portman (born Natalie Hershlag, he, נטע-לי הרשלג, ) is an Israeli-born American actress. She has had a prolific film career since her teenage years and has starred in various blockbusters and independent films, receiving mu ...
,
Michael Shannon
Michael Corbett Shannon (born August 7, 1974) is an American actor, producer, musician, and theater director. He is an off beat actor known for his on-screen versatility, performing in both comedies and dramas. He became known for his frequent ...
,
and
Elizabeth Olsen
Elizabeth Chase Olsen (born February 16, 1989) is an American actress. Born in Sherman Oaks, California, Olsen began acting at age four. She starred in her debut film role in the thriller ''Martha Marcy May Marlene'' in 2011, for which she wa ...
.
The series has been praised for its comedic timing and Music's hosting, with ''
Vulture
A vulture is a bird of prey that scavenges on carrion. There are 23 extant species of vulture (including Condors). Old World vultures include 16 living species native to Europe, Africa, and Asia; New World vultures are restricted to North and ...
'' calling the ''Back-to-Back Chef'' "simple, elegant, and absolutely genius."
Music was also featured in the series ''Test Kitchen Talks'', ''From the Test Kitchen'', and ''Making Perfect''.
In August 2020, two months after the resignation of editor-in-chief
Adam Rapoport
Adam Rapoport (born 1969) is an American former magazine editor. After serving as a Style Editor at '' GQ'', Rapoport was the editor-in-chief of '' Bon Appétit'' magazine from 2010 until his resignation in 2020.
Early life and education
Rapo ...
and the subsequent fallout regarding inequitable pay for staff and contributors
of color, several members of the Test Kitchen, including Music, announced they would no longer film videos for the ''Bon Appétit'' YouTube channel due to a continued lack of progress in resolving issues at
Condé Nast Entertainment
Condé Nast Entertainment (also known as CNE) is a production and distribution studio with film, television, social and online video, and virtual reality content.
CNE is headquartered at 1 World Trade Center.
Background
Previously, Condé Nast ...
.
A
cookbook
A cookbook or cookery book is a kitchen reference containing recipes.
Cookbooks may be general, or may specialize in a particular cuisine or category of food.
Recipes in cookbooks are organized in various ways: by course (appetizer, first cour ...
by Music, ''Where Cooking Begins: Uncomplicated Recipes to Make You a Great Cook'', was published by
Penguin Random House
Penguin Random House LLC is an Anglo-American multinational corporation, multinational conglomerate (company), conglomerate publishing company formed on July 1, 2013, from the merger of Penguin Group and Random House.
On April 2, 2020, Bertels ...
on March 19, 2019. In May 2020, the cookbook earned the 2020
James Beard Foundation Book Award in the category "General".
Music announced she was working on a second cookbook in October 2019.
In November 2020, Music launched her own video series called ''Carla’s Cooking Show'' which is limited to her
Patreon
Patreon (, ) is a membership platform that provides business tools for content creators to run a subscription service. It helps creators and artists earn a monthly income by providing rewards and perks to their subscribers. Patreon charges a co ...
subscribers.
In December 2020, Music launched a new collaborative
Instagram Live
Instagram is a photo and video sharing social networking service owned by American company Meta Platforms. The app allows users to upload media that can be edited with filters and organized by hashtags and geographical tagging. Posts can be ...
series with ''Bon Appétit'' alumna
Molly Baz called ''You Got Snack'd''.
Music's second cookbook, ''That Sounds So Good: 100 Real-Life Recipes for Every Day of the Week'', was released in October 2021, along with a new corresponding weekly YouTube series. Each weekly episode features Music cooking a recipe from the book.
Personal life
Music resides in
Fort Greene
Fort Greene is a neighborhood in the northwestern part of the New York City borough of Brooklyn. The neighborhood is bounded by Flushing Avenue and the Brooklyn Navy Yard to the north, Flatbush Avenue Extension and Downtown Brooklyn to the wes ...
,
Brooklyn
Brooklyn () is a borough of New York City, coextensive with Kings County, in the U.S. state of New York. Kings County is the most populous county in the State of New York, and the second-most densely populated county in the United States, be ...
with her husband Fernando Music and two children.
She is the daughter-in-law of deceased actor
Lorenzo Music, who was the original voice of
Jim Davis' comic strip character ''
Garfield
''Garfield'' is an American comic strip created by Jim Davis. Originally published locally as ''Jon'' in 1976, then in nationwide syndication from 1978 as ''Garfield'', it chronicles the life of the title character Garfield the cat, his human ...
''.
Works
Books
*
*
Web shows and series
References
External links
Carla Lalli Musicat ''
Patreon
Patreon (, ) is a membership platform that provides business tools for content creators to run a subscription service. It helps creators and artists earn a monthly income by providing rewards and perks to their subscribers. Patreon charges a co ...
''
Carla Lalli Musicat ''
Bon Appétit''
''Back-to-Back Chef''at ''
Bon Appétit''
{{DEFAULTSORT:Music, Carla Lalli
Living people
American people of Italian descent
American YouTubers
Bon Appétit people
Brown University alumni
International Culinary Center alumni
James Beard Foundation Award winners
Women chefs
Year of birth missing (living people)