A self-taught cook who later trained at Le Cordon Bleu and working for Chef Paul Boucouse, Strauss was asked to share recipes on-air.
Strauss won an Emmy in 1981 for her Breaking News coverage of the kidnapping and murder of Ronnie Tolleson, a 10-year-old from West Covina, California.
Strauss became co-host and reporter of the nationally syndicated television and Emmy award-winning show Hour Magazine in 1983 where she worked for three years.
In 2001, Strauss co-produced and directed Dwarfs, not a Fairy Tale[7][8] which was shown on HBO and was nominated for an Emmy for Outstanding Non-Fiction Primetime Special.
[9] Concerned about the conditions of the working poor in America, Strauss produced and directed in 2004 No Place Like Home, a documentary for MSNBC[10] which received a Casey Medal for Meritorious Journalism,[11] as well as a Front Page Award from the Newswomen's Club of New York.
In 2012, Strauss was named a Beatrice Stern Media Award Honoree by the Didi Hirsch Mental Health Services organization.