"I am an award winning cookbook author, prolific food writer and popular cooking school teacher, but mostly I am a passionate and dedicated cook. Most days you will find me in my sunny Mexican tiled kitchen cooking for friends and family and coming up with great tasting recipes for my blog, magazine features and cookbooks. You might be familiar with my recipes through the Cooking for Health column I wrote for Bon Appetit magazine for many years. Or, perhaps you have one of my cookbooks in your collection. Some of my most popular books are the award winning The Good Egg and Lighter Quicker Better (written with Richard Sax), Fresh & Fast, Fig Heaven, Sur La Table’s Things Cooks Love, The Amazing World of Rice and the best selling 365 Ways to Cook Pasta. My latest, just released book is Fresh & Fast Vegetarian: Recipes that Make a Meal.The hours I spend in my kitchen bring me back to childhood play dates cooking beside my mother and grandmother. These two excellent family cooks taught me how important it is to make sure everyone has something good to eat. Every day, I hear their words, and I do the same."