Thank you to B. J. Novak and Dev Flaherty for creating Li.st, so we could meet on it, become friends, and realize we should write a book together. To Sophia Rossi for believing in us and introducing us to our amazing book agent, Richard Abate. To Richard, for guiding and advocating for us every step of the way. To Rachel Kim, whose intuition, persistence, and organization made this entire process better and smoother. To our extraordinary editor, Maddie Caldwell, who couldn’t have been a more perfect fit for this. She just “gets it,” and also picks fantastic places to meet for drinks in New York. We feel cool knowing her. To Elizabeth Van Itallie for making our brainchild look and feel better than we ever dreamed it could. To everyone at Grand Central / Hachette, including Becky Maines, Morgan Hedden, Kallie Shimek, and Tom Whatley, for making Hot Mess Kitchen available to the masses. We love you.
To Mindy Kaling for adding her name to this project and providing us with so much support (on a daily basis for Miranda) and also for just adding general coolness points to this cookbook (it’s cool, we know seeing her name on the cover helped you decide to buy this—we’re okay with that).
To Frankie Frankeny, whose beautiful photography brought our book to life, and whose dry humor and very cute dog (you’re in our hearts forever, Pie) made our photo shoot the best. We also thank her for dealing with our vanity and insistence that we look as hot as possible in every photo. On that subject, thanks to Kristina Welzien (styleseat.com/kristina) for making our hair and makeup gorgeous, and to Dena Smith (leowithcancer.com) for bringing her entire closet to style us for our photos, and teaching us how to pose. We also want to mention Nada Perrone, Steve Smith, Rebecca Kee, Brian Cristol, Irvin Lin, Chris Jackson, and Haylee Bay for lending their beautiful faces to the shoot. Without them, it would look like we have no friends. Thank you also to Kellye Gray for opening her home to us for several of our photos.
FROM MIRANDA
Thank you to my parents, Russell and Anita Berman, for birthing me, believing in me, and also for picking up my late-night panicked phone calls even though I should probably be calling other people at this stage in my life. Thank you, as well, to my sister for generally being there and for having cute children, of whom it is fun to look at photos and smile.
Hillary Reinsberg, thank you for being a lifelong pal and also for lending your editing smarts to a bunch of early drafts of my essays. Everyone at The Mindy Project, especially all the assistants, deserves a special mention for listening to me talk and complain about how itchy I am. I love you all.
Finally and most importantly, I want to thank Gabi, for trusting me enough to work with, for texting me back when no one else would, for being a friend, and of course, for teaching me how the hell to cook. I love you.
FROM GABI
Thank you to my wonderful family, Ouisue Packard, Larry Moskowitz, Jeremy Moskowitz, Jennifer Truax, Alan, Kathy and Haran Wolkenstein. Your support means the world to me.
To Barry Kotler and Lisa Shotland, thank you for your belief in me. I feel so lucky to have agents who are also awesome friends.
To my smart, sexy, dapper husband, Evan, thank you for letting me ramble about this book for a year and a half, even though we had a wedding to plan. Thank you for letting me test recipes on you and leave you with the dishes. Thank you for cheering me on at every turn. I love you more than anything.
And to my sweet, beautiful, brilliant coauthor Miranda, thank you for patiently listening to my rants, for making me laugh, for making our book hilarious, and for teaching me how to use Snapchat. I love you forever.