Afton Cyrus

After working for a decade as a teacher and education program administrator in Boston, Afton pivoted to pursue her passion for food professionally in 2014. She launched her own small business, Jam Sessions, through which she made and sold small-batch, locally-sourced jams and jellies throughout the Boston area. She continues to teach home canning and preserving workshops, including as an instructor at the Cambridge School of Culinary Arts. Her experience with recipe development for Jam Sessions led to an 8-year career at America's Test Kitchen, where she created and edited content for multiple New York Times Bestselling and IACP Award-winning cookbooks, including The Complete Cookbook for Young Chefs, The Complete Baking Book for Young Chefs, The Complete Cookbook for Young Scientists, and Bread Illustrated. Today, she is a recipe developer and food editor whose work appears in print and online for America's Test Kitchen, Serious Eats, and Ten Speed Press. She lives in Arlington, MA with her cat, Wesley, where she loves to grow vegetables in her garden, host elaborate meals for friends, and wax poetic about Maine, where she grew up and hopes to someday return.

Favorite Purchase:

As an avid home canner, I am in love with my Ball FreshTech Electric Water Bath Canner. I can set it up right next to the sink to easily fill it from the faucet (without having to then stagger across the kitchen to the stove with a pot full of 20+ quarts of water), then drain the water back into the sink with its handy spigot when I'm done. It frees up a burner on my stove, which is great when I am making multiple batches of jam, sauce, or pickles at a time. I also love that it's portable for when I'm doing live canning demonstrations in locations without a traditional kitchen, like libraries, schools, or local farms. As long as there’s a place to plug in, I’m good to go!

Publications:

• Sustainability Can Start in the Kitchen
• ATK Kids
• The Reader's Kitchen

Afton has a B.A. in Music and Elementary Education from Brandeis University and an M.Ed. in Arts in Education from the Harvard Graduate School of Education.