Jill Cordes

Luckily for Jill Cordes she perks right up after that first cup of green tea (after recently giving up coffee) in the morning. Otherwise she might never have survived two years of rising daily at 3 a.m. to co-produce and solo-anchor an hour and a half morning show.

Jill's traded in her 3 a.m. workdays in order to travel the country for the Food Network show The Best Of. She and co-host Marc Silverstein scour the nation in search of some of the best restaurants in North America, interviewing the people who make food their personal art. She recently wrote the book "Food Network: Best Of the Best Of" with her co-host Marc Silverstein. The book details their many adventures on the road, serving as part travelogue, part confessional and part recipe collection.

What sets Jill apart from other television hosts is that she is a reporter first and foremost. When working on The Best Of, she wrote and produced more than half of her segments. Jill, a native ofPennsylvania, began her television career as a news reporter inRapid City,South Dakotain 1995. From her humble beginnings, she quickly moved up the news ladder-from the ABC affiliate inSioux Fallsas a general assignment reporter, to the ABC affiliate inOmaha,Nebraskaas the morning anchor, and eventually toMinneapolisas a reporter for the CBS station, WCCO. In January 1999, Jill was one of four people in the country selected to audition live for the coveted co-host position on ABC's The View with Barbara Walters.

On her new HGTV show, "My First Place", Jill captures the experience, challenges and excitement of first time homebuyers, as well as the stresses and sacrifices they made to get to this monumental moment in their lives. The show follows homeowners as they pack up their rental and move into their first place. Designers are brought in with a shoestring budget of $3000 to transform one room in their new place, turning it from bland to beautiful.

A Penn State honors graduate with a major in journalism and a minor in political science, Jill enjoys the outdoors and loves working out--whether it be boxing, yoga or running--she ran the Twin Cities marathon with her then-future husband in 1999, and is now planning on going for it again, this time in New York City, where she and her husband, Phil (a film maker), now live. They, along with her two cats Katie and Draino (found in a Philadelphia sewer years ago) made the big move to Manhattan in August 2001 from Minneapolis, Minnesota.