Joan Reardon

Culinary historian, cookbook author, and biographer Joan Reardon is the author of M.F.K. Fisher, Julia Child, and Alice Waters; M.F.K. Fisher Among the Pots and Pans; Poet of the Appetites: The Lives and Loves of M.F.K. Fisher; and Oysters: A Culinary Celebration. Reardon, who has a Ph.D. in English literature, won an International Association of Culinary Professionals Award for Literary Food Writing, publishes and edits a quarterly newsletter for Les Dames d’Escoffier Chicago, and serves on the advisory board of Gastronomica magazine. Her newest book, As Always, Julia, which for the first time makes available the fascinating letters between Julia Child and her friend and confidante Avis DeVoto, publishes in December 2010.