Born July 3, 1908, in Albion, Michigan, M.F.K Fisher was raised primarily in Whittier, California, where she enjoyed cooking meals for her family. Encouraged in literary pursuits by her parents, she combined her favorite pastimes-cooking and writing-and began writing about cooking as early as 1929 when she moved to Dijon, France, with her first husband, Alfred Fisher. Fisher was educated at Illinois College, Occidental College, the University of California at Los Angeles, and the University of Dijon. She has written under the names Mary Frances Parrish, Victoria Bern, and Victoria Berne. A prolific author, her work is primarily autobiography and memoir. Her long list of publications… includes Dubious Honors (1988) and Stay Me, Oh Comfort Me: Journals and Stories, 1933-1945, (1993). She also contributed articles to widely known magazines, including the New Yorker, Vanity Fair, and Gourmet. Fisher died of Parkinson's disease on June 22, 1992, in Glen Ellen, California.
Ruth Reichl is editor in chief of Gourmet magazine and was previously the restaurant critic for The New York Times and the Los Angeles Times.