MINNEAPOLIS, MN.- One of America’s leading food authorities and commentators, Lynne Rossetto Kasper shares her lesser-known passion for collecting in a lecture sponsored by the Friends of the Institute at the Minneapolis Institute of Arts. Kasper will speak about her remarkable collection of cooking-related objects, ranging from decorative wares, artifacts, folk arts, and tools. “Food and Art: Collecting with Heart” will be presented Thursday, February 12 at 11 A.M. Admission is free.

For more than twenty years, Kasper has been a visible and audible authority on food. She co-created and hosts The American Public Media program, “The Splendid Table,” which was named the 2008 Best National Radio Show on Food by The James Beard Foundation, and The Best Radio Talk Show for 2008 by the American Women in Communications.

Kasper’s column, “Ask the Splendid Table,” is distributed to more than four hundred newspapers across the country, and her first cookbook, The Splendid Table: Recipes from Emilia-Romagna, the Heartland of Northern Italian Food, won The Cookbook of the Year award from both the James Beard Foundation and the International Association of Culinary Professionals when it was published in 1992.

Kasper was born in 1943 in Englewood, New Jersey. She worked in New York City for a number of years after college, teaching and writing about food. In 1976 she moved to Denver and started a cooking school, which was a tremendous success. Beginning in 1981 and for the next five years, she spent her time in Europe, researching food history and learning hands-on from those she regarded as “chefs, home cooks, scientists and folklorists,” among others—all this in preparation for writing her award-winning cookbook.

In addition to teaching and writing, Kasper has lectured on Northern Italian food and culture at The Smithsonian Institution in Washington, D.C., at Boston University, and for other professional and academic groups.