Sue:
Who is your favorite chef?

Nancy:
My favorite chef is Roland Mesnier, the White House executive pastry chef. I studied with him when I took a year-long professional pastry program some years back, and he is an extraordinary talent and artist. Perhaps even more important, he is a wonderful, inspiring teacher, a down-to-earth, approachable person, and very funny, to boot. I'm probably still absorbing some of what he taught about achieving great flavor, fine texture, and beautiful appearance.

Sue:
It is quite a feat to be both a chef and a successful writer. How did you come to be doing both of these exciting professions?

Nancy:
A high school English teacher named Miss Parlette inspired me to write; she said I had "a way with words!" Cooking was just something I always enjoyed. I puttered around making desserts from the time I was about eight. Later, my mother also encouraged my attempts to cook the family supper on the evenings she had teachers' meetings and got home late. I never thought about culinary writing or food journalism until after I'd finished college and worked as a technical writer. Then, I discovered that writing about food was a lot more fun than writing about nuts and bolts and operating machines!

Introduction | part 1 | part 2 | part 3 |