Denise Mickelsen oversees all of 5280’s food-related coverage, and feels damn lucky to do so. When she’s not dining at Colorado restaurants or writing about what she’s eaten, Mickelsen can be found cooking (seafood) and baking (pies), reading cookbooks like they’re novels, and hiking and skiing with her family. She holds a culinary arts degree from the Institute of Culinary Education (ICE) in New York City, and upon graduating from ICE, Mickelsen cooked in two renowned Manhattan restaurants: Blue Hill NYC and the (sadly now closed) Fleur de Sel. Thanks to her restaurant experience, Mickelsen secured an internship in the Saveur test kitchen and was eventually hired as a full-time editor there. From Saveur, she moved to Martha Stewart Living (as an associate food editor) and then Fine Cooking (as a story editor). There, Mickelsen edited a wild salmon feature, “Go Wild!”, which won the 2015 Bert Greene Award for Instructional Culinary Writing from the International Association of Culinary Professionals (IACP). In 2014, Mickelsen ventured into digital food media (and moved to Denver), working as an acquisitions editor at Craftsy, where she managed and edited their cooking and baking videos. In 2015, Mickelsen was a judge for the IACP cookbook awards, and in 2016, she edited a Craftsy baking video, “Mastering Meringue: Techniques & Treats”, which won the IACP Digital Media Award for Culinary Video Series. Also in 2016, “Indian Curries: The Basics & Beyond,” which Mickelsen edited, won the James Beard Foundation Broadcast Media Award for Excellence in Instructional Video.