Chris Sherman has been a reporter and editor covering the media, suburban growth, cops and robbers, politics, and international affairs since the 1970s. For the past 20 years he has specialized in food, wine and spirits, cooking and dining.

He grew up in Cincinnati and went to the College of William and Mary in Virginia and Stanford University. As a newspaper nomad he has worked in Washington, D.C., New York City, Raleigh, upstate New York, Shreveport, Orlando and St. Petersburg, with a long sojourn in Ecuador and Peru.

In food, his resume would include five-way chili, Smithfield ham, tacos and zinfandel, Grey's papaya, spiedies, pupusas and ceviche, jambalaya, a lot of black beans, too many grouper sandwiches and a world of other goodies, plain and fancy. He writes about cooking and shopping for food, wine, beer and spirits for the St. Petersburg Times with various detours into art, architecture and design. He is also the restaurant editor of Florida Trend magazine and the statewide Golden Spoons.

He now lives in Tampa and previously got sand in his shoes on Pass-A-Grille. He is married to Sandra Thompson, the novelist, has a stepdaughter Alex in New York City, and tends to a feral cat they have named Due.

Phone: (727) 893-8585

E-mail: sherman@sptimes.com