Photo by Sarah Shatz

Amanda Hesser has designed a seventeenth-century-style herb garden at a French chateau, developed the Twitter app Plodt, and appeared in Julie & Julia, playing herself. She began her career as a kitchen runner and bread truck driver in college, then picked grapes in France, made pretzels in Germany, and cleaned rabbits in Italy. As a longtime staffer at the New York Times, Hesser has written more than 750 stories, created the columns Food Diary and Recipe Redux, and was the food editor at the Times Magazine, where she launched T Living. She has written the award-winning books Cooking for Mr. Latte and The Cook and the Gardener and edited the essay collection Eat, Memory, based on a column she conceived for the Times Magazine. She is also the cofounder of food52.com. Hesser lives in Brooklyn with her husband, Tad Friend, and their two children.