For three decades, Deborah Madison has been at the vanguard of the vegetarian cooking movement, authoring fourteen classic cookbooks and winning many awards for her work. Two of her books, The Savory Way and Vegetarian Cooking for Everyone, were awarded the Julia Child Cookbook of the Year. She has also received five James Beard Awards, the Andre Simone Award, and five International Culinary Professionals Awards. In 2016 she was inducted into the James Beard Foundation Cookbook Hall of Fame.

Deborah Madison's interests lay with issues of biodiversity, seasonal and local eating, farmers markets, small and mid-scale farming, farmers and ranchers, gardens and gardeners. One of her best-selling cookbooks, Local Flavors: Cooking and Eating from America’s Farmers Market, includes her work with the Santa Fe Farmers Market as well as her visits to over 100 farmers' markets.

For decades Deborah Madison has been known as “The Queen of Greens” (the Washington Post) thanks to her beloved cookbooks and her groundbreaking work as the chef of the Greens Restaurant in San Francisco. She trained at Chez Panisse in Berkeley and started Cafe Escalera in Santa Fe.

“I dare you to cut into any part of this edible memoir and not eat the whole thing in one ravenous gulp. To eat Deborah's words as she serves them up is to feast on food, life, love, art, beauty, purpose, and possibility.” Betty Fussell, writer, food historian, and author of “Eat, Live, Love, Die.”