Melissa M. Martin grew up on the Louisiana coast and has lived in New Orleans for 25 years. She honed her self-taught culinary skills to a professional level in the Napa Valley. In 2014, she opened Mosquito Supper Club a Cajun restaurant created to celebrate the bounty of fishermen and farmers that define Bayou cuisine. In 2020 she published Mosquito Supper Club Recipes from a Disappearing Bayou, her cookbook won an IACP award for best American Cookbook and Cookbook of the Year in 2021. She won a 2022 James Beard Foundation Award for Best South: Chef and Best Book: U.S. Foodways for her cookbook Mosquito Supper Club: Cajun Recipes from a Disappearing Bayou. Find her on Instagram @mosquitosupperclub