TO PARAPHRASE JOHN DONNE, no writer is an island; he has editors.
It may not be universally realized that every word in a book or newspaper has been scrutinized and checked by at least one, and often as many as a dozen, pairs of eyes, whose invisible fingerprints (to muddle a couple of metaphors) are all over it.
While writing this book and its predecessor, I have benefited greatly from the wisdom, advice, and good judgment of W. W. Norton’s senior editor Maria Guarnaschelli, the personification of “tough love,” who acted not as a mere after-the-fact editor, but as a fond collaborator from the project’s inception to its completion. Without her guiding hand in the tasks of crafting and re-crafting its scope and organization, this book would not have been possible.
My gratitude has been earned also by Maria’s sharp and most capable assistant, Erik Johnson, for coordinating the many elements that go into the publication of a book, including nagging the author about deadlines.
Among the skillful professionals at W. W. Norton who turned my manuscript into a book, led by president Drake McFeely, editor-in-chief Star Lawrence, and managing editor Nancy Palmquist, are designer Barbara Bachman, jacket artist John Fulbrook III, art director Georgia Liebman, publishing director Jeannie Luciano, director of manufacturing Andy Marasia, production manager Anna Oler, sales manager Bill Rusin, and project editor Susan Sanfrey. The illustrations are the products of talented freelance artists Alan Witschonke and Rodney Duran. I thank them all.
My special appreciation goes to ultrameticulous copy editor Katya Rice, whose sharp eye and linguistic expertise (who else would write me an entire paragraph to justify a changed comma?) kept the text either immaculately syntactic or syntactically immaculate, and who would incisively have pointed out the difference.
I remain grateful to my literary agent, Ethan Ellenberg, who long ago encouraged me to write the book that became the first in my “Einstein Series.” The volume you are now holding is the fourth in what I had hoped might some day become a trilogy.
Until now, I have not availed myself of an opportunity to thank in print the people who over the years catalyzed my metamorphosis from chemist to writer.
For launching me on the very first step of my journalistic journey, I am grateful to Nancy Brown, editor of The University Times, the University of Pittsburgh’s faculty and staff newspaper, who asked me to write a column when I didn’t know I was capable of writing a column.
I am indebted to Mark Nordenberg, former dean of the School of Law and currently chancellor of the University of Pittsburgh, for perceiving enough of a writer in me to ask that I write profiles of distinguished alumni for the Law School’s alumni magazine.
And I shall always remember the late chancellor of the University of Pittsburgh Wesley Posvar, for recognizing the morale-building value of humor in a university, and for encouraging my satirical monologues at the university’s annual administrative conferences.
For the past seven-plus years, Washington Post food editors Nancy McKeown, Jeanne McManus, and Judy Havermann have granted me the privilege of writing for that august newspaper, the bright and curious readers of which have provided the grist for this book. I could never have imagined such an outcome while sitting in a one-semester journalism class at Fort Hamilton High School under the tutelage of the incomparable A. H. Lass.
A special hug goes to Paula Wolfert, who believed in me as a fledgling food writer, who encouraged me, and who gave me valuable advice.
And of course, my wife and coauthor, Marlene Parrish, deserves my admiration not only for the work she did on the recipes but also for enduring the deprivation of my company during my many months of slaving away at the computer.