Tori Ritchie

As the host of Ultimate Kitchens, Tori has also spent enough time in kitchens to dream up blueprints in her sleep!Tori spent her childhood eating her way adventurously through the restaurants and markets of San Francisco. Three years after graduating from Stanford with honors, Tori quit her brief career in real estate to attend cooking school full time. After earning her chef's certificate in 1985 at Tante Marie's in San Francisco, she became a cooking teacher and cookbook author.

From 1987 to 1992, Tori was a food editor at Sunset Books. There she wrote six titles, including the International Association of Culinary Professionals Award-winning Light & Healthy Cookbook. She's also edited dozens of cookbooks, among them the James Beard Award-winning Entertaining series from Williams-Sonoma. In 1998, Tori combined her two great loves—food and the outdoors—between the covers of Cabin Cooking (Time Life, 1998).

Tori keeps her knife as sharp as her pencil as food critic at San Francisco magazine and is also Food Editor-at-large for San Francisco magazine. She also serves as a weekly food "tipster" for Evening Magazine on KPIX/Channel 5 in San Francisco. National television guest appearances have included Oprah, the Ainsley Harriot Show, and Home Cooking with Amy Coleman. She was host of Appetite for Adventure.