Melissa Clark is a best-selling cookbook author and food columnist for The New York Times, where she writes the popular column: A Good Appetite and has starred in over 100 cooking videos. She’s written 45 cookbooks, including the award-winning Dinner: Changing the Game, and her latest, Dinner in One. Melissa attended Barnard College, and Columbia University, where she earned her Master of Fine Arts in Writing. Born and raised in Brooklyn, she lives there with her husband and daughter. She loves anchovies, radishes, chicken feet, and lox but not in that order. 

Debra Ponzek graduated from the Culinary Institute of America in 1984. She worked in top New Jersey restaurants before joining the three-star Montrachet, where she quickly rose to the position of Chef, earning three consecutive three-star reviews from The New York Times.

By age 28, Debra was recognized as one of the “Ten Best New American Chefs” by Food & Wine Magazine. In 1990, she was named “Chef of the Year” by the Chefs of America Association, and in 1991, she received the “Rising Chef of the Year” award from the James Beard Foundation. She was also the first American chef to receive the prestigious “Moreau Award” for culinary excellence from Frederick Wildman and Sons Company.

In June 1994, Debra left Montrachet to open Aux Délices, a gourmet food shop in Greenwich, Connecticut, with her husband Greg Addonizio. Their shop, café, and catering business focuses on freshly prepared, hand-crafted take-away food.  Over the years Aux Délices has expanded to include five retail shops, a large commissary kitchen space, and a full-service catering and event planning division.

Debra has published four cookbooks: French Food, American Accent, The Summerhouse Cookbook, The Family Kitchen, and The Dinnertime Survival Cookbook.