Elizabeth Karmel is America’s Female Grilling Expert.
—Steven Raichlen, author The Barbecue Bible and How to Grill
Elizabeth Karmel, a.k.a. Grill Girl and often referred to as Queen of the Grill grew up in North Carolina where she was raised on BBQ. Her cultural passion for barbecue served Elizabeth well as she played with fire everyday handling marketing public relations efforts and culinary initiatives for client Weber-Stephen Products Co. for a decade before creating Girls at the Grill™ in 2002.
Elizabeth is a grilling and barbecue information resource for the country’s media and food writers, chefs and cookbook authors. She is frequently quoted and generally regarded as America’s female grilling expert. As the years passed, Elizabeth realized that her true calling was to spread the good word of grilling and barbecue. Elizabeth recognized that most women she met – even the women who were very good cooks – never stepped one foot in front of the grill. So she decided it was time for the girls to take back the backyard and she was going to lead the charge!
Elizabeth created Girls at the Grill in 2002 to share her passion for outdoor cooking with girls (and any willing guy) everywhere. www.GirlsattheGrill.com is committed to providing backyard cooks (and women who are tired of burnt chicken and shoe-leather steak) with simple easy-to-understand instructions, lifestyle information and recipes for everything from classic cookouts to gourmet grill meals. Elizabeth shares her knowledge and enthusiasm every week through the free GrillNEWS newsletter she sends to members of the website’s LadyBug Club. The club boasts tens of thousands of members, both male and female. Elizabeth kicked off www.GirlsattheGrill.com as the guest chef at a James Beard Foundation dinner in June 2002.
Elizabeth has been the featured guest on many Food Network programs and specials. She is a regular guest on all three morning shows, Today, Good Morning America and CBS The Early Show as well as Martha Stewart Living Radio.
Elizabeth is the author of an all-inclusive grilling and barbecue cookbook, Taming the Flame: Secrets for Hot-and-Quick Grilling and Low-and-Slow BBQ published by John Wiley & Sons and released in May 2005. In 2008, her cookbook, Pizza on the Grill was published by Taunton and co-written by Elizabeth’s good friend and pizza pal, Bob Blumer, a.k.a. The Surreal Gourmet. Soaked, Slathered and Seasoned: A Complete Guide to Flavoring Food for the Grill and BBQ was released April 2009. All three cookbooks have won awards and are in multiple printings.
In addition, Elizabeth writes a column called American Table for the Associated Press and contributes to magazines including Fine Cooking, Better Homes & Gardens and Saveur. Her work has appeared in Bon Appetit, Cooking Light, Everyday with Rachael Ray, Martha Stewart Living, Redbook, and Chile Pepper Redbook. She has been featured in many more magazines including, Food & Wine, Gourmet, REAL SIMPLE, Marie Claire, Fitness, SHAPE, Women’s Health, New York, Men’s Health, CHICAGO, Good Housekeeping, Midwest Living, Martha Stewart Living, Paula Deen, Cosmopolitan, PARADE, Wine and Spirits, and Wine Spectator
Elizabeth teaches grilling and authentic barbecue and Southern cuisine in cooking schools across the country and is an instructor at ICE in Manhattan.
In addition to grilling, writing and teaching, Elizabeth introduced her Grill Friends™ line of kitchen and grilling tools designed for outdoor cooking and entertaining at the 2004 Housewares Show. Her Grill Friends Super Silicone Angled BBQ Basting Brush won a Silver Trophy at the 2005 Fancy Food Show for best non-food product and is the only basting brush that Cook’s Illustrated recommends. In February 2008, the Angled Silicone BBQ Mop won a Gold Medal from the National Barbecue association. Elizabeth’s line of grilling and kitchen tools (www.grillfriends.com) is sold nationally at gourmet kitchen and housewares stores and online.
In June 2007, she opened the award-winning Hill Country (www.hillcountryny.com) in New York City as the executive chef. The first weekend the restaurant was opened, it fed 7,000 happy folks and has gone on to receive praise from both local and national food and restaurant critics, including Best BBQ in NYC. The highly acclaimed restaurant celebrates and honors the barbecue traditions of Central Texas and the Texas Hill Country. The James Beard Foundation invited Elizabeth to be a guest chef in August 2007 on behalf of Hill Country—where barbecue meets fine dining to earn its rightful place in the New York culinary community. In September 2010, Elizabeth opened Hill Country Chicken as the executive chef to bring homemade fried chicken and pie to hungry folks in Manhattan. In March 2011 Elizabeth opened HCDC—Hill Country Barbecue Market in Washington, DC to crowds of barbecue-starved constituents in the nation’s capital.
Elizabeth keeps her hams in the BBQ circuit as a Kansas City Barbecue Society (KCBS) certified judge. She was previously the head cook of the team, Bubba meets Bacchus. She continues to judge on the barbecue circuit where she’s picked up some of her favorite recipes, tips and techniques. She features her trademarked grilling and barbecue techniques in all of her communications with the goal of de-mystifying outdoor cooking and getting outdoor cooks everywhere to live her mantra: “If you can eat it, you can grill it!™”
She is a member of Les Dames d’ Escoffier, Southern Foodways Alliance, IACP, the James Beard Foundation, KCBS, NBBQA and Slow Food. She served on the Culinary Advisory Board of the Writers Colony at Dairy Hollow, was as a judge of the 2001, 2002, 2003, 2004 IACP Cookbook Awards and the 2004, 2007, 2008 James Beard Awards. In addition, she has judged both Chopped and Iron Chef America.
