Melissa Petitto, RD, was raised around an eclectic collection of food in Birmingham, Alabama. With two seemingly diverse cultures that center life around the kitchen, Petitto gained an early appreciation for food and its impact on a person’s life. Attending Johnson & Wales University, Melissa Petitto was afforded the opportunity of working for The Governor’s House Inn as the bed and breakfast chef and at Cooking Light magazine in the test kitchen. To enhance her skills and opportunities, she furthered her education at Emory University Hospitals with a dietetic internship. Upon passing her registered dietician’s exam, Petitto made the move to New York City to pursue her career goal of becoming a personal chef. After twelve years in the city, Petitto recently made the move west, now calling Santa Barbara, California, home, and became the personal chef she had envisioned herself to be with an A-list clientele. In recent years, she has traveled to teach cooking classes and works at the Hilton Head Health Institute, a premier weight-loss spa, where she lectures, presents food demonstrations, and consults with individual clients in attendance in addition to traveling to York, Maine, to teach classes at the well-known Stonewall Kitchen Cooking School. Petitto is the author of Acai Super Berry Cookbook, An Apple A Day, 30 Minute Paleo Meals, The CBD Handbook, and Red Hot Sriracha. She collaborated with Hilaria Baldwin on The Living Clearly Method. Whether cooking dinner for an individual client or a dinner party of twenty-five, Melissa Petitto exudes the passion she feels for nutritious food and its role in a family’s life. melissapetitto.com
