Barbara Kafka

Creator

Dial Publishing Company

Biographical Note

An acclaimed presence in the food world for decades, Barbara Kafka has been a cookbook author, food writer, and a food and restaurant consultant.

No other writer working today can claim as long a professional association with James Beard. Their association began when she was hired to supervise and write much of The Cook's Catalogue, a book edited by Beard with Milton Glaser and Burton Richard Wolf in 1975. She continued to work with him, teaching classes at his cooking schools in California and New York, and helping him with his writing. After Beard's death, she put together The James Beard's Celebration Cookbook in order to raise money for the James Beard Foundation. Kafka's own exhaustively-researched single-subject cookbooks (Vegetables, Roasting, Microwave Cooking) have set a standard for excellence. In 2007, Kafka received a Lifetime Achievement Award from the James Beard Foundation.

In her interview, she discusses her relationship with Beard and her own extensive work.

Access Points

People:
Baum, Joseph
Beard, James, 1903-1985
Bramson, Ann
Cage, John
Child, Julia
Cofacci, Gino
Cournand, Edouard
Cunningham, Marion
Ferrrone, John
Glaser, Milton
Guerin, Jacques
Jones, Judith, 1924-
Kafka, Barbara
Kump, Peter
Sax, Irene
Talmey, Allene
Tower, Jeremiah
Villas, James
Waters, Alice
Wilson, José
Wolf, Burton

Organizations:
Dial Publishing Company
Farrar, Straus, and Company
Four Seasons (Restaurant)
Mademoiselle
Playbill
Revue du vin de France
Vogue
Windows on the World (New York, N.Y.)

Subjects:
Authorship
Celiac disease
Cookbooks
Cooking, American -- History -- 20th century
Cooking -- Equipment and supplies
Cooking, French
Cooking -- Periodicals
Cooking -- Study and teaching
Food writing
Homosexuality
Journalism
Microwave cooking
Publishers and publishing
Restaurants --- New York (State) -- New York
Wine