When Sondra and Dorie first met in 2003, they were both on the verge of developing a new outlook on healthier eating. In previous years, Sondra had experienced significant health challenges that required specific dietary restrictions that, by necessity, involved using healthier ingredients. Having healed considerably, she knew firsthand the benefits of healthier eating and was finding ways to make it an easy and natural part of normal life. Dorie was dealing with health challenges in her own family and was exploring ways to use healthier eating and nutrition to bring a sense of normalcy and health to their disrupted lives. Both Sondra and Dorie were working with tight budgets. For different reasons, their days were busy and their energy limited, but they had a strong desire to find things that worked – and that could work for the average household.

Together they began sharing ideas, brainstorming solutions, creating new recipes and developing nutritious meals with limited time and resources. Their love of learning and of sharing their knowledge with others spurred them on to thinking about writing a book.

In 2005, Dorie and Sondra began to put ideas for a book about healthier eating on paper. It was a slow process, with many life interruptions and a lot of learning along the way. Three years later, Simple Choices for Healthier Eating was finally born!

Sondra lives with her husband in Coralville, IA. There are many days when Sondra cooks for herself and then has food prepared for her husband when he gets home late from work. These evenings led to the development of many recipes that work when cooking for one or two.

Sondra has a Bachelor of Science degree and has taken graduate studies, which served her well as a Family and Consumer Science educator. She also worked as an assistant manager in college food service for twelve years. Sondra is the author of Allergy and Candida Cooking: Understanding and Implementing Plans for Healing and enjoys healthy cooking to maintain health and manage allergies. She loves sharing food and ideas with others, including her church family. This led to many thoughts about cooking for a crowd.

Since co-authoring Simple Choices for Healthier Eating, Sondra is enjoying her new career of public speaking on eating healthier and teaching cooking classes near her home

Dorie and her husband Steve live in Eau Claire, WI with their two boys. Many fun, frustrating and exhausting moments led to a variety of tips for letting kids help with meal preparation and coping with an unpredictable schedule – at home and in the store! She regularly interacts with other young moms, discussing the challenges of feeding a family. For two years of the writing and recipe creation, Dorie’s husband, Steve, was in graduate school, so it was a necessity to find creative ways to expand their food budget. Dorie taught elementary school and now adds to her mothering responsibilities various writing and speaking engagements. Dorie assisted Sondra with the writing of Allergy and Candida Cooking: Understanding and Implementing Plans for Healing. This is when their partnership of creating recipes and writing about healthier eating began.

Together Sondra and Dorie have a combined twenty-five years of healthy cooking experience. As professionally trained educators, Sondra and Dorie do more than offer readers information-they teach them how to use it.

Sondra and Dorie plan to author additional healthier eating cookbooks under their series title Transitions to Better Living. For more information about their working relationship, please see pages 241-242 in Simple Choices for Healthier Eating.