Mary Frances Kennedy Fisher was one of the great nonfiction writers of the 20th century. That she chose to write mainly about food caused her to be taken perhaps less seriously than she should have been. Much of what I know about living well, let alone food and cooking, I learned from Mrs Fisher, and I would give my eye teeth to have met her before she passed on a few years ago. There is a saying that we have written round our dining room table (one of many, actually): "It is at table that everything happens." A more apt description of Mrs Fisher would be hard to find. She takes as her subject food and how it triggers our emotions, our memories; her long and amazingly full life (covered only in its first half here) she chooses to explore using food and eating as her touchstone. This is a collection of her five best books on food. It can be read over and over and it never becomes tiresome, and in fact I have gone through three copies. Never lend it out, for you will never get it back. Oh yes, and there are recipes scattered throughout it as well, some quite astonishing either in ingredients, simplicity or setting.

This is one of those books I will never choose to live without.

Lynn Siprelle, Editor