Karen Tosten was born in Hattiesburg, Mississippi into a large family of wonderful southern cooks. She learned to cook at her mother's side, using her siblings as her guinea pigs. Karen attended college at Louisiana State University in Baton Rouge, where she developed her love for spicy Creole and Cajun cooking. She married William, an Air Force Officer, and they began their life together in the United States Air Force. Over her lifetime, Karen Tosten has lived in eight states and overseas in Germany after sixteen moves. Over the past twenty-plus years in the Air Force community, she has gathered quite a collection of recipes from the many friends she met along the way. These recipes reflect the taste and cultures that can be found in the United States and around the world. These and recipes she gathered from other Air Force families are compiled in Best of the Best Air Force Recipes. Karen Tosten and her husband William have two daughters and currently reside in Yorktown, Virginia.