Valerie Aikman-Smith - food stylist

Valerie Aikman-Smith is a chef, food stylist, culinary producer and cookbook author based in Los Angeles. She first cooked at the innovative Greens restaurant in San Francisco alongside Annie Somerville and then worked at the legendary Alice Waters Berkeley eatery, Chez Panisse.

Valerie soon segued her chef skills and talent into food styling. Her first film assignment was James Cameron's TITANIC. That venture led to a succession of movies such as Oceans 11, Vanilla Sky, XXX2 State of the Union, The Family Stone, Bi-Centennial Man, The Wild Wild West, Bounce and Town & Country.

Her editorial work includes international assignments for Bon Appetit magazine where she has cooked and styled her way through the Greek Islands, Paris, Mexico, Croatia and Scotland. Additionally, her work is seen in many cookbooks, commercials, print and advertising campaigns.

Valerie also works for the Food Network as Culinary Producer and/or Food Stylist on the Chef Jeff Project and on the Emmy winning Every Day Italian and Giada at Home. She styled the launch of the "Guess Who's Coming to Dinner" campaign for Target, which features Giada De Laurentiis's debut food and cookware line.

For Disney Television she has been working on "The Muppet Kitchen" with Iron Chef Cat Cora.

Valerie is the author of the cookbook SALT, and writes for several magazines.