Greg Patent is a cookbook author, food journalist, cooking teacher and radio host. Although he was born in Hong Kong, he has called Missoula, Montana, home for much of his adult life.  

Greg’s cookbook, Baking in America, a historical look at how America's baking traditions were shaped during the past 200 years, won the 2003 James Beard Award. His next cookbook, A Baker’s Odyssey: Celebrating Time-Honored Recipes from America’s Rich Immigrant Heritage, was a 2008 James Beard Award nominee and won the 2009 Cordon d’Or Academy Award.

He has written seven other cookbooks, his most recent being Montana Cooking. In 1990 he published a memoir of his childhood in wartime China called Shanghai Passage.

He remembers living in a small apartment in Shanghai during the World War II, which his family shared with his maternal grandmother, who was Iraqi. He says his grandmother was a fantastic cook and baker, and the Middle Eastern food she prepared was memorable and kosher. His paternal grandmother, who was from Russia, lived nearby and she, too, inspired the young Greg with her pastries, especially the crisp and flaky napoleons.

Greg and his family immigrated to San Francisco in 1950 and soon afterwards, he started cooking on his own. His mother gave him a copy of Betty Crocker’s Picture Cookbook and he tried to make baking powder biscuits, which looked like one of the easiest recipes. His efforts resulted in abject failure but a neighbor suggested he had over-worked the dough and his next attempt was successful. From then, he was hooked.

When he was 18, Greg entered the Pillsbury Bake-Off and won second prize in the junior division with his recipe for apricot-filled date bars sandwiched between a buttery crust of coconut and walnuts.

Instead of pursuing a career in food, he graduated from the University of California at Berkeley with a Ph.D. in zoology and embarked on an academic path. Everything changed in 1982, when he went to work full-time as national spokesperson for Cuisinarts, Inc. He taught cooking classes all over the country and hosted a television series broadcast nationally on The Learning Channel. In the early 1990s he was executive chef at two Montana restaurants, where he pioneered the inclusion of locally-grown organic foods into his menus.

Greg has written articles on food for many national magazines, including Saveur, Fine Cooking, Food & Wine, Woman's Day, Family Circle, Real Simple, Gastronomica, Bon Appétit, Cooking Pleasures, and Cooking Light.   

Greg lives with his wife, Dorothy, in Missoula, Montana, and writes two monthly columns for his local paper, the Missoulian. He also co-hosts a weekly cooking program on Montana Public Radio called The Food Guys with Jon Jackson.   

His website is www.gregpatent.com and his blog is www.gregpatentgetsyoucooking.blogspot.com.