ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

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This book owes its existence to my smart, feisty, and fierce-hearted friend Kim Ricketts, who, one night at Contigo in San Francisco, leaned over the table to where I was chattering on about the garden my mother was buying in Seattle and looked at me intently. “You have got to write about this,” she said, “you know that.” And because Kim was always right, I did.

I’m so sad Kim is not here to read the final product, but her spirit and all that she taught me about family and community and kindness are in these pages. Thank you, Kim. I’ll miss you forever.

This book found its way forward thanks to my friend and agent Danielle Svetcov, who is also smart, feisty, and fierce-hearted. Thank you for championing my work, for being patient with long gestation periods, and for not killing me when I let your daughter use the kitchen knife. Chats with you are one of the highlights of this gig.

This book would not have been completed without the support, good cheer, and excellent feedback given by the women in my writing group (smart, feisty, and fierce-hearted, all of them). Erica Bauermeister, Randy Sue Coburn, and Jennie Shortridge, outstanding writers themselves, generously and gracefully helped shepherd the wayward child forward. For this, and for regular deadlines, writerly commiseration, and champagne corks out the window, I cannot thank you enough.

This book owes its final form to the support and vision of editor Pamela Cannon at Ballantine, who gave it a very soft spot to land. A finished book is always the work of many hands, the author’s being only the first. To Pamela, and to Betsy Wilson, Loren Noveck, Katie Herman, Robbin Schiff, Susan Turner, and Simon M. Sullivan: Thank you for giving Orchard House a home, and for making it far, far better than I ever could have on my own. And thanks to Lindsey Kennedy, Quinne Rogers, and David Glenn, for helping the book out into the world.

To my readers, who have cheered me along from the start, and waited very patiently while I have been working on this project, thank you for your generosity, for your support, for saying you would wait until I was done. You have no idea how much it means.

Writers do not exist without mentors and companionship. Thanks to my teachers Barbara Owens, Elaine Johnson, Patricia Holland, and David Arehart, and in memory of John Nicholson (I have never forgotten that John Ciardi assignment). Thanks to Elmaz Abinader and Sarah Pollock, and in memory of the late, great Amanda Davis. To my Mills compatriots, Litquake, and the gang at Seattle7Writers, a grateful toast. To Anne Patchett, for saving my writer’s sanity a time or two, Anne Lamott, for showing me how important it is to write truth about hard things, and Cheryl Strayed, for reminding me to be brave on the page and in life.

Thanks also to the Mesa Refuge writers’ residency, for the opportunity to work on this book in a stunningly beautiful place, and deepest appreciation to Dr. Brené Brown, for giving me both an understanding of and a language to describe the concept of vulnerability. To Amanda Soule and family, for inspiration, and to Elaine Petrocelli and family at Book Passage, for giving me an extraordinary bookstore to grow up in.

I would not be here today without the support of my friends. Thank you to the Cookbook Club women (smart, feisty, and fierce-hearted, all of you), to Rebekah Denn and family, Myra Kohn, Michelle Hamilton, Knox Gardener, Paul McCann and family, Megan Gordon and Sam Schick (for telling hard truths), Sian Jones, Lian Gouw, Andrea J. Walker, Anne Livingston, Mari Osuna, Adam de Boor, Jennifer Johnson, Meg Peterson, my friends at Camp Unalayee, the community at Book Larder—and to Molly Wizenberg, Brandon Pettit, and the gang at Delancey, who make the meals that put my pieces back together.

Thanks, especially, to Ginnie and Bruce Ellingsen, who made a little girl feel at home; to Lorraine Ginter, for being the best babysitter we ever had, and for getting me curious about cooking; and to John Preston and Fawn Baron (otherwise known as June), for caring.

Thanks also to the many farmers, permaculturalists, and food folks who have inspired and helped educate me (any mistakes are very much my own). To Billy Allstot of Billy’s Gardens; Adam Schick of Linnaea Farm; Casey and Eric Reeter from Wilderbee Farm; Don Ricks and Ingela Wanerstrand of Friends of Piper’s Orchard; Gail Savina of City Fruit; Cole Tonnemaker of Tonnemaker Farms; Novella Carpenter of Ghost Town Farm; Dr. Stephen Jones of WSU Mt. Vernon; permaculturalists Jenny Pell, Marisha Auerbach, and Kelda Miller; Nazila Merati for #askabotanist; Jon Rowley for strawberries; Flatland Flower Farm for those first raspberry canes; Margaret Roach and Gayla Trail for inspiration and education; Michael Pollan; Seattle Tilth; and the Master Gardener program of King County. And thanks to Jill Lightner and Edible Seattle for giving me the opportunity to meet so many of these fine folks. And to chef Dan Barber of Blue Hill Restaurants, for a life-changing story, and Kate McDermott, for lessons in pie and graceful living.

As much as I miss my San Francisco friends (I do, I so do), I really have found a community in Seattle that I hadn’t thought possible—thanks to all who are part of it (far too many to list here, a happy fact). Thank you, particularly, for putting up with my many absences and canceled camping trips while working on this project, and special thanks to Katie Briggs, for the best deadline care package ever; to Kate Vander Aa, for constant cheering, many car rides, and that amazing email; to Hsiao-Ching Chou, for wontons when needed, birthday cupcakes, and the Dimples; to Ellen Pohle for plates of dinner, mojitos, and berry picking; to Leslie Seaton for cheering cards, long talks, and camping trip organization; and to Lianne Raymond and Mary Plummer Loudon, for love and support in keeping the ship sailing forward. I couldn’t have done it without you.

Finally, thanks to my family, who are dealing quite well with the trial of having a writer in their midst. To my mother, for giving me gardens, for letting me share her story, and for believing in me so much it’s scary; to my brother and sister-in-law, who in their children have given me the best gift of my life; and to the kidlets, who are smart and feisty and fierce-hearted as well. You make it more fun to be on Team Weaver than I ever imagined possible. I love you all.