Molly Yeh | |
|---|---|
| Born | May 22, 1989[1][2] |
| Alma mater | The Juilliard School ('11)[4] |
| Spouse |
Nick Hagen (m. 2014) |
| Children | 2 |
| Parent |
|
| Website | mynameisyeh |
Molly Yeh (born May 22, 1989)[2] is an American cookbook author, restaurateur, and blogger who is the host of the Food Network cooking show Girl Meets Farm.
Yeh was born and raised in Glenview, Illinois,[1][3] to Jody (née Shinbrod) and clarinetist John Bruce Yeh. Her mother is Jewish and her father is Chinese.[5][6] She has an older sister, Jenna, who is a chef, as well as a younger half sister, Mia.[7][8][9]
Yeh attended Glenbrook South High School[10] and the Midwest Young Artists Conservatory,[11] where she was a member of two percussion ensembles—The Rattan Trio[12] and Beat 3[13]—which won consecutive gold medals (2004 and 2005) in the junior division of the Fischoff National Chamber Music Competition. She kept journals from a young age which turned into her blog in 2009.[14]
After high school, she moved to New York City to attend the Juilliard School, where she was editorial assistant and writer at The Juilliard Journal and in 2011 earned a Bachelor of Music degree in percussion.[15]
After Yeh and her husband Nick Hagen moved to his family farm outside East Grand Forks near the North Dakota/Minnesota border in 2013, Yeh began devoting more time to her food blog, which included personal stories about her life on the farm. The blog gained attention in part due to Yeh's artistic food photography becoming popular on Pinterest; in 2015 she was named "Food Blogger of the Year" by Saveur.[16] In October 2016, Yeh published her first book, Molly on the Range: Recipes and Stories from An Unlikely Life on a Farm (Rodale Books), for which she won the Judges' Choice IACP Cookbook Award in 2017.[17] Like her blog, the book combines Yeh's recipes and food photography with autobiographical stories.[18]
Yeh began hosting her cooking show Girl Meets Farm on Food Network which debuted on June 24, 2018.[5][19] The series is recorded at Yeh's farm and features Midwestern cuisine as well as elements from her Chinese and Jewish heritage. Her eleventh season of Girl Meets Farm launched on September 4, 2022.[citation needed] In November 2018, she was a guest co-host on From the Top, a podcast showcasing young classical musicians. Yeh had previously appeared on the show twice as a teenager, in 2004 and 2007.[20] She hosted the Food Network competition shows Ben and Jerry's Clash of the Cones in 2021[21] and the eighth season of Spring Baking Championship which premiered on February 28, 2022.
In 2022, Yeh opened Bernie's, a café restaurant in East Grand Forks, Minnesota specializing in Midwestern dishes with Scandinavian and Jewish influences.[22][23]
In 2014, Yeh married fellow Juilliard music major Nick Hagen a year after the couple moved to East Grand Forks, Minnesota where Hagen is a fifth-generation farmer.[3][18][6][16]
In November 2018, Yeh announced that she and her husband were expecting their first child. On March 30, 2019, Yeh gave birth to a daughter, Bernadette Rosemary Yeh Hagen, named after her husband's great-great-grandfather Bernt (who started the Hagen farm) and her own great-great-grandfather, Bernard.[24] In September 2021, Yeh announced she and her husband were expecting their second child in February 2022.[25] Their second daughter, Ira Dorothy Yeh Hagen, was born on February 20, 2022.[26] Ira's name was suggested by Jamie, the director of photography for Girl Meets Farm.[27]