There are many people to thank for this book, starting with everyone at Rodale, past, present, and future, who contributes to what we do and enables me to do what I do. We are an awesome team that is devoted to accomplishing our mission of inspiring health, healing, happiness, and love in the world. Starting with you.
I’m especially grateful to my blog coordinators who have helped me post and manage these recipes over the years: Maria Luci, Dana Burland, and Heather Hurlock. Plus, Katie Hunsburger who reads all my blog posts and is always relieved when a recipe comes through rather than some of my other more challenging topics. And Kathleen Oswalt, my assistant, who guards my writing time and schedule with a flaming sword.
I’d like to thank my co-conspirator and editor of this book, Melanie Hansche, for answering my prayer to the universe for a “minister of food” and moving all the way from Australia and leaving the employ of food celebrity Donna Hay to join Rodale. I’m also grateful she assembled a crack Aussie team to photograph and style my recipes (here’s looking at you, Con Poulos and Simon Andrews). I tell you, these recipes photograph a lot better than when I make them, but they are my recipes!
I’d like to thank the book team at Rodale: Gail Gonzales, Jennifer Levesque, Jeff Batzli, Dervla Kelly, and Rae Ann Spitzenberger who helped guide, advise, design, refine, and shepherd this project over many months. Nancy Bailey deserves a special shout-out since she has copyedited almost all of my books and blogs and is retiring after this one.
Deep gratitude to all my blog readers and commenters, especially Donna in Delaware and Alice Green. If it weren’t for you, I would have stopped, because the only compensation I receive for doing this is feeling heard.
Thanks to the bakers who taught me the secrets of baking: Haika Powell, Allan Schanbacher, David Joachim, and especially Renae Rzonca, for letting me into the back baking room at the Emmaus Bakery—a dream come true!
A loving thank you to all the Cinquinos—especially Mike and Michelle, Anthony and Susan, Nicholas and Rebecca, and Liz, and including the extended Cinquino and Argana clan, who have inspired me with their love of food and passion for growing and eating and coming together with food. And of course, to Lou Cinquino, for introducing me to all of them and putting up with my experimenting, critiquing, and crabbiness in the kitchen for so many years.
Special thanks to my daughters, who have watched me progress from an inexperienced cook who often started fires and burned a lot of things, to a mom who is now actually cheerful and happy in the kitchen (although I still burn things). And I’d especially like to thank them for putting up with my crazy schedule and complicated life and being patient while I’m writing at the computer at home and on weekends, which is more often than not. And to Tony Haile, my hungry son-in-law who loves my stuffing and fries. And to Alex Maloney, who feels like family. Thanks for loving my cooking.
To my sisters, Heather and Heidi, who have shared the weight, the joy, and the responsibility of cooking over the years. What I find fascinating is that each of us makes Nana’s Kugel (see recipe) in a completely different way, and yet it always tastes like kugel. And thanks to my brother Anthony and his wife, Florence (and Florence’s family), who have brought a love for French cooking to our lives.
And while there are many famous chefs and writers who have inspired me over the years, I find myself thinking more of friends who have inspired me. Friends like Ian Jackson, who has shared his love for Australia with me and made me want to learn to make Aussie meat pies and Anzac “bikkies.” Friends like Holly Walck Kostura, my amazing yoga teacher, who sometimes comes to my house and makes things to eat that become our favorites. (Two of her soups are in this book.) And friends like Kimbal Musk, whom I’ve bonded with over how to roast a chicken, but we’ll never agree on how to make gravy. Despite our differences on the topic of gravy, we share an intense passion for changing the world through #realfood. (And having fun while doing it.) And David Totah, who once climbed over a table set for 202 people in order to sit next to me. Thanks for sharing my belief that art, spirit, and love are as important as food. I love you all dearly!
And then there is Gigi. Gigi is my Miss Jeannie, always cleaning up after me and making sure I come home to a clean kitchen. We’ve been a team for more than 34 years. First as a babysitter and then in my home for 18 years as so much more than that. THAT’s how I do what I do. And with gratitude to Elvin Laracuente and Patti Rutman, as well.
Thanks to everyone at the Rodale Institute who has worked hard over the years to show that organic is the only way to feed the world. You have all made the world a much better place!
To every person, chef, restaurant and market that made me taste something for the first time that would wake me up and make me NEED to make it for myself, I thank you. To all the food magazines I’ve ripped pages out of and saved for decades. To all the food leaders who have inspired me: Alice Waters, Michel Nischan, Michael Pollan, as well as John Seymour and Angela who were with me at that amazing meal in a German farmhouse where a woman with pink cheeks served a full head of cauliflower cooked and covered with a cheese and ham sauce. I still haven’t gotten that recipe right, but one day I will!
To all the companies that have grown the organic industry and made organic food so much more accessible for everyone—but especially for me in Pennsylvania. You’ve made my life so much easier and delicious.
And this may seem weird, but thanks also to all the people who have made my life really difficult. What you have succeeded in doing is actually making me stronger and certainly making the sanctuary of my loving home, family, and kitchen even more sacred.
And lastly, to all the people who grow our food, and especially to the farmers who grow it organically.