If you can ever get an invite to Megan’s house for dinner, cancel all your plans and take it. Her ability to make people feel comfortable and feed them the highest quality and most beautifully presented food is always a treat. And not because it’s all perfect, but because you get to participate, taste as she goes and drink wine with her from start to finish.

She loves to test and practice and hone her knowledge of an ingredient before inviting you over and it shows in the end result.  There’s always plenty of well thought out and paired options because if something doesn’t turn out right it does not make its way to the table.  It’s just her way.

Megan has lived in Chicago with her husband and two kids for 17 years.  They drink in the city as one would think tourists might.  But this tourist is looking for, and enjoying when she finds it, the most authentic treats a big city has to offer like ethnic grocery stores, community theater and korean spas.She will gladly introduce you to some of her favorites like Dirk’s Fishmarket, where she learned the art of shucking oysters, Devon Grocery’s wall-o-indian spices or Golden Pacific Market, where live crabs are stacked in boxes and fish swim in buckets on the floor.

Megan’s long stint in advertising agencies has led her to the freedom of being a marketing consultant which she loves almost as much as a stroll through her favorite local grocery store Harvest Time. No Chefs Allowed was her idea – with some help from her 8-year old nephew – as a way to try all those amazing foods that one might get through life and realize they never tasted.