Cooking Light Top 100 CookbooksThe gift came as the best presents do: unexpected, unsolicited, and a bit of a buried treasure (in this case, my email inbox). My book, The Santa Monica Farmers’ Market Cookbook, has been named to Cooking Light’s Top 100 Cookbooks of the Last 25 Years! Who knew the magazine would celebrate their 25 years in print with a ginormous awards project spanning 15 categories to be unveiled over the year.

My book is in the Healthy Cooking/Lifestyle category, which focuses on fresh ingredients, whole grains, and exciting approaches to healthy eating. Appropriately enough, this category is featured in the January-February issue of the magazine and online here. I’m so pleased to be keeping company with extraordinary authors Nancy Harmon Jenkins, Maria Speck, and Nina Simonds.

It really is the most delicious gift. I wrot my cookbook with the idea that a local market could illustrate a whole way of shopping and cooking in season, no matter where one lives. My deepest thanks to the folks at Cooking Light, three time zones away in Alabama, who saw what I was going for and validated it in a big way.