Aida Marianne Mollenkamp (born April 15, 1980)[1] is a cook, television personality, and food writer from Manhattan Beach, California.

Mollenkamp grew up in Southern California and attended Rolling Hills Country Day and Chadwick School in Los Angeles.

In high school, a skiing accident rendered her temporarily unable to dance and she turned to cooking as a means of expressing herself creatively.

[3] Following this, she worked in hospitality real estate consulting at Ernst & Young, then moved to Europe, living between Florence, Italy, and Paris, France, for two years.

Mollenkamp's first Food Network series, the interactive cooking program Ask Aida, began airing on August 2, 2008 and filmed three seasons.