Hey there, welcome to Bite by Michelle, the place where I celebrate food, love and life. My name is Michelle Hooton. I’m a self trained chef, photographer, and writer — all of which happened because of this blog.

I started writing Bite by Michelle the year my three daughters left home. When the girls were small, at some point during dinner, one of them would say “Mom, tell me a story about me.” Family life was crazy busy when the girls were growing up. My husband Ralph was on the road three to four days a week; I owned and ran a flower shop and an Italian deli. The girls were involved in a variety of extracurricular school activities and I often felt myself pulled in many different directions. My life was full to the brim with all the wonderful minutiae of being a working mom.

For twenty years, Ralph and I raised our daughters to be able to conquer the world. When they left home, I wasn’t ready for daily life without them.

In 2011, Bite by Michelle became my place to continue to tell my daughters stories about them without seeming profoundly needy of their time. Calling them several times daily felt obsessive.

In the early years of Bite by Michelle, I posted three or four times a week. I barely knew how to use my laptop or my camera and yet I was constantly pushing out posts. Honestly, I cringe whenever I look at my early work; it’s so bad.

A lot has changed since then.

The same year I started Bite by Michelle, Ralph and I bought and renovated an old, dilapidated farmhouse on the St. John River. We spend our summers there and during the winter we live on the Bay of Fundy in a century-old Victorian home. Both of my kitchens are workhorses and they need to be because this is where I am inspired to create.

Another change came with the opening of Italian by Night, a trattoria in Saint John, where I am co-owner and founding chef. We have an amazing team who are committed to our vision of providing delicious Italian food beautifully served.

Over the years, I’ve learned to use my camera to capture food the way I see it, my writing has improved, and I’ve figured out the secrets to what makes a recipe great.

In the thousands of recipes I’ve tested and developed, I’ve realized there is always something that sets a recipe apart from all the others, a particular ingredient or a specific technique that takes an ordinary dish to extraordinary – good food to great food. I call it the love.

It is the culmination of all these experiences that I hope will propel this next chapter of Bite by Michelle.

This is where I share secrets to great food and stories about life.

Glad you found me.

Contact:

Email: I read and answer all email personally which depending on the time of year means it can take me awhile to respond… If this is this a recipe question, please leave it in the comments of the post it relates to. I respond to almost all questions posted in comments within 48 hours.