MEMBER FOCUS: Meghan Splawn
Meghan Splawn has crafted a recipe for a successful career in the food media world, but according to her, it all started by accident. While getting her certification in pastry and baking from the New England Culinary Institute in Vermont, which happens to be the same school Alton Brown attended, Meghan had a chance encounter with a culinary producer on Alton’s Food Network show ‘Good Eats.’ After spending the day asking tons of questions, her enthusiasm earned her a six-month internship on the show. After the internship, she stayed on to cover a team member’s maternity leave. That ultimately turned into 10-plus years working on the show.
These days, Meghan is a self-described culinary content producer. Her work is regularly featured on TheKitcn.com and Simply Recipes, and she’s collaborated on several best-selling cookbooks. “I spent the last year working with the Grill Dads,” she says. “They had a Food Network show and now they have a big Instagram and Tiktok following. And they wrote their first cookbook, and I helped project manage and recipe test for that.”
When she’s not helping other cooking personalities and brands whip up high-quality content, Meghan co-hosts a podcast with Stacie Billis called ‘Didn’t I Just Feed You,, which helps busy families stay sane and well fed. Despite her strong culinary resumé, Meghan draws on her own experiences when crafting and sharing recipes.
“I think it's like a lovely little mix of having grown up with a single mom and a restauranteur dad, I'm always looking at recipes as an assignment for me,” she says. “Like, what is the least number of ingredients and the most economical ingredients that can be put in this recipe? And then, what are the little cooking tricks that I know can take those basic ingredients and make them really delicious? Sometimes it's just a little bit more time in the oven or using both parts of an ingredient to get double the flavor. And I'm definitely trying to streamline the number of dishes.”
Meghan lives in Chattanooga with her husband and two kids, who also serve as great in-house taste testers. If you follow @meghan_splawn on Instagram, you can expect to see her recreating technical challenges from ‘The Great British Baking Show,’ testing out the latest trends such as butter boards, plus genius cooking tips and balanced meals. By that, she means a good mix of savory and sweet.
“I feel strongly that if you're a person who meal preps, you should also meal prep dessert,” she declares. “People don't do that. And you don't even have to bake the cookies on that day. You could just make cookie dough, which takes 10-15 minutes.”
For the record, we subscribe to this food philosophy.
When she needs a break from the kitchen or editing content, Meghan likes to spend time socializing at Common House. “I mean there are days where if my husband's gone for work and after I take the kids to the bus stop then I don't talk to anyone for a whole day. So it's really nice to be able to go for a workout class or come for a glass of wine or even just to meet friends.”