It’s funny and odd to start adding up the reasons, the small intentional moments, the transformative conversations, and the chances people took on you—I promise you it is an emotional avalanche of gratitude that you don’t know how to begin to categorize or communicate. It makes your brain do seemingly impossible somersaults in order to get it all down thoroughly and clearly. But here we go anyway:
David Black, you scared the shit out of me when we first spoke those many years ago. You cut through my bullshit with a hot knife and waded through a lot of moments of growth and becoming with me. You were exactly what I needed, and I am grateful I was somehow smart enough to keep you close to me. I am grateful for your voice in my head and I am grateful for your mentorship. But mostly I am ever grateful that you believe in my writing and that you refuse to let me see anything other than my utmost potential. I’m not scared anymore. I adore you.
This book, and my still intact sanity and emotional constitution, would not have been possible without everyone at Penguin Press getting behind me and enthusiastically supporting this book so graciously and fervently. I am especially forever indebted, though, to my generous editors, Ginny Smith Younce and Caroline Sydney. You took me so far over these last few years and over all these pages and iterations—learning about this work from you has been the honor of a lifetime. You both brought such skill and talent and love to this process, and to my life. Thank you for believing in me. Thank you for this chance. It is, truly, a dream come true. I hope I have made you proud.
To my first two editors ever: Kate Krader and Kat Kinsman. You have been so important to this, so important to me. Thank you for being two of the first people to put my writing into the world. Thank you for seeing something in me that was ready to take up space and thank you for providing that space.
To everyone at Food & Wine magazine: your enthusiasm and full-on support of chefs, your good intentions, your dedication to telling the right stories, and your warmth and sincerity are going to change the world.
So much of our life in the South is based on connections and friendships and lifting one another up. When I think of the two greatest and nearly visionary connectors in that world, I think of John T. Edge and Ashley Christensen.
John T., you have a habit of kicking down the gate when you have the power to do so, the gate that usually keeps a lot of us out, and I love you for it.
Ashley Christensen, you have been a standard-bearer for so many of us for so long and you have shared your success and your opportunities with so many of us, especially your womenfolk compadres, with the most generous hand. You radiate kindness and you bring people together in very big and important ways. You’ve made us all so much richer in our work and relationships. Those of us who get to call you a friend are fortunate indeed. I love you very much.
Angie Mosier, Ann Marshall, Cheetie Kumar, Rebecca “Quiet Riot” Wilcombe—I don’t even have words for how much your friendship means to me. It’s funny that we say “TNB!” because I would trust you bitches with my whole, entire life. I can do anything knowing you all are out there, behind and beside me. I am so grateful for our love and trust and honesty.
Yve Assad, you are my favorite collaborator and daydreamer. You and your whole team went the distance to make the cover of this book something I could get my head around and be proud of. Your friendship, hilarity, joy, and light in this world mean so much to me. Let’s keep going!
Ronni Lundy, Leah Chase, Diana Kennedy, Alice Randall, Alice Waters, and Annie Quatrano—you have lit the path every step of the way, you have reached back to make sure we knew we were welcome, and you have all showed us how it can best be done. But mostly, you have given us the power of your grace, strength, and love in a world that does not necessarily cultivate those things for or in women. Thank you for being dedicated to building the world we all deserve.
Timshel Matheny, Heidi Ross, Emily Leonard, Robin Riddell Jones, Libby Callaway, Vadis Turner, Kelly Williams, Mary Arwen, Barbara Mountenot, Joy Shaw, and so many other women in Nashville: thank you for keeping me fed and loved and supported and energized and for making me feel, for the first time in my life, like I have a hometown.
Lolis Eric Elie, Tony Earley, Ruth Reichl, Kim Severson, Margaret Renkl, Mary Laura Philpott, Dorie Greenspan, Keia Mastrianni, Charlotte Druckman, you all show me what hard work and dedication mean in writing. You are all inspirations. Thank you for gracing my life with your generous words, support, and friendship.
My kitchen family, Margot McCormack, Sean Brock, Anne Kostroski, Sal Avila, Aaron Clemins, Brian Baxter, Morgan McGlone, Davis Reese, Molly Levine, Sean Ehland, Katy Keefe, Sam Jett, Colby Rasavong, John “Buddy” Sleasman, Mike Wolf, Dano Heinze, thank you for opening doors, and for being teachers and touchstones in times of both failure and great success.
I get to exist in a community so large and so loving that this list feels incomplete. But during this process, my career, and my life at large, these people have been guiding lights and true loves and have done so much, either up close or from afar, to keep me afloat and joyful and full of hope—true friends and inspirations, as they say: Natalie Chanin, Alex Raij, Eder Montero, Kelly Fields, Johnny Mosier, Paul Silber, Scott Blackwell, Julie Saunders, Mashama Baily, Katie Button, LeighAnn Smith, Osayi Endolyn, Allan and Sharon Benton, Bill Smith, Jason Stanhope, Nick Pihakis, Charlotte Coman, Judith Winfrey, Tamie Cook, Vishwesh Bhatt, Katherine Miller, Frank and Pardis Stitt, Dolestar Miles, Pableaux Johnson, Vansana Nolintha, Matthew Kelly, Sloan and Wendy Southard, Mark Nash, Skip Matheny, Bob Durham, Glory Dole, Jenny Le Zotte, Andrea Fehl, Anne Phillip, Francis Lam, the Lee Brothers, Tallahassee May, Hunter Lewis, Diane Flynt, Judy Pray, Rene Redzepi, Melina Shannon-DiPietro, Sarah Abell, Soa Davis, Lisa Geffen, Kelly Clarkson, Brandon Blackstock, Allie Kearns, Tricia Farrow, Ava Brock, Chelsea Kramer, Lily Aldridge, the Kings of Leon, Dave Chang, Arielle Johnson, Angela Dimayuga, Mike Solomonov, Samin Nosrat, Marc Vetri, the Arnold family, Caleb Zigas, the La Cocina family, Julia Turshen, Mayukh Sen, Jessica Battilana, Pat Martin, Jennifer Justus, Erin B. Murray, Kim Greene, Susannah Felts, and, most definitely, Kevin and Nancy Murphy.
Big love and gratitude to Fred C. Donovan and Susie Spellman Donovan—my mother- and father-in-law, who remain two of the loveliest humans I know. I’m forever in your debt for your love and support and, ultimately, for having raised the very good human who is your son.
My sisters, not by birth but by the grace of whatever god is out there—Dana Grace Murphy and Alisa Love Martin—you are my family. This book is wholly possible because of you both. Thank you for taking me on long drives, for letting me lose my shit on you on the rainy streets of Paris, for tolerating my insufferable self-involvement over these last few years, for making me laugh through the tears and talking me through all the crippling self-doubt that comes with writing a book. You’ve seen it all. Somehow you still love me. I will never not feel like the luckiest human in the world to get to love you back.
Elsie and Mary, my grandmothers, I know are never far from me. I carry the great weight of their love and protection with me everywhere I go, a thing I feel an overwhelming sense of pride and responsibility toward. I owe a great deal to both of them.
My brother, David Michael Rierson—I could write an entire acknowledgments page just on you alone. Your golden heart is one of my favorite things floating around this planet. You will always be my best friend, and you will always be such a big part of who I am in this world. I love you.
William Michael Rierson, my father, my hero, my truth teller—when I feel the most lost in the world, I remember that I belong to you, that we belong to each other, and then I remember I can do anything because I am your daughter. Thank you for showing me what true strength of character looks like. Thank you for hearing and seeing me, all of me, my whole life, even when it was hard.
Mary Ann Rierson, my mom, you carried me under your big, important, and boisterous heart when you were just a young woman in 1977 and then continued to carry me inside of that same heart every day after I was born. Your love and prayers mean more to this angsty, stubborn fool than you know. I would be lost without them. I would be lost without you.
John Donovan, what can I say that hasn’t already been said? I don’t know who deserves the kind of love you give me, but I will take it and I will cherish it, and you, forever. Our marriage and our hard work together make me so proud. We’re just getting started, so I hope you’ve napped.
Last, but most important, my two children, Joseph and Maggie—you have always been the reason. Being your mother has been the privilege of a lifetime. You two are the absolute lights of my life. There is nothing we can’t do, the four of us. I know it to be true, because I’ve seen it. I love you both with everything I’ve got.
There is no luckier woman walking this planet than me. I am grateful for it all.