A New Director for International Association of Culinary Professionals

Tanya Steel, 54, an editor and writer who has worked for decades in the food media, is the new executive director of the International Association of Culinary Professionals, replacing Martha Holmberg, who resigned last month.

The association, an organization of recipe developers, cookbook authors and others whose work centers on food, was founded in 1978 by a group of cooking teachers that included Julia Child and Jacques Pepín. Based in New York City, it now has about 1,500 members. Its annual conference has become an essential networking opportunity for a certain segment of cooking professionals, and its awards have become an important marketing tool for publishing houses and cookbook authors.

Those awards came under scrutiny in March, when the group’s top cookbook honor went to “Six Seasons: A New Way With Vegetables,” by Joshua McFadden, the chef and an owner of Ava Gene’s in Portland, Oregon, and Holmberg, a food editor and cookbook author who had been the association’s executive director since 2011.

Although voting on the awards is confidential and the results are tabulated by an independent third party, Holmberg agreed that the perception that the award was somehow influenced by her position remained. So the organization rescinded the two awards the book won and endeavored to change its awards policy. Holmberg resigned in September, and will continue to write cookbooks and produce other food media.

Strengthening the integrity and transparency of the awards process is high on Steel’s agenda. She also intends to expand the organization to other countries, work on making the membership more diverse and weigh in more forcefully on hunger, waste and other food-policy concerns.

“It’s no good being part of an organization that doesn’t stand for anything,” she said.

Steel spent 20 years as part of the Condé Nast publishing empire, including nine years as the editor of Epicurious. From 2012 to 2016, she ran the Healthy Lunchtime Challenge & Kids’ State Dinner with Michelle Obama, an annual recipe competition and event at the White House. In September, she published her third book, “Food Fight: A Mouthwatering History of Who Ate What and Why Through the Ages.”