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Hi, I'm Francis Lamb and this is the Splendid Table from APM.

You know how they say, never meet your heroes? Well, I can tell you from experience that it's generally a very good advice, unfortunately.

There was this one time where I met this food writer I looked up to, you know, early in my career and they basically said to me,

you really can't do what I do. To be fair, it was not mean they were not being malicious and they were technically correct, but you know, still.

Another was the other time where I went to go see this band I loved and they straight up made fun of me from the stage.

Anyway, the point is if you idolize someone, probably lots of people idolize that person and too much adoration really has a way of making for awkward situations.

But if you happen to idolize cookbook author extraordinaire Dory Greenspan, fear not that your affections are misplaced because she is, in fact, one of the loveliest people on earth.

She's written over a dozen cookbooks, including collaborations with some of the greats like Julia Child, Chef Stagnopoulou and Pierre-Romé.

Before becoming so beloved herself that she is a group of fans who gather online to cook her recipes every week now for over a decade.

Her books are simply titled Making with Dory or Dory's Cookies and then I mentioned she's one of the loveliest people on earth.

So we want to spend some time with her, a whole episode.

Hearing about how she got started in food, it's a great story, how she comes up with her thousands of always delicious recipes and all kinds of stuff in between.

So hey Dory, it is so, so great to see you. Thanks so much for making time from beautiful Paris.

I'm so happy to be with you. I guess I get to say Bonjour.

Yeah, you can say Bonjour anytime. It's melodious coming out of your mouth.

Oh, it's really good to be here and thank you for figuring out the time difference.

We don't want to catch you in your pajamas, but okay.

So I don't usually start interviews by truly fawning over my guests, but you have been a legend for as long as I can remember.

You've written over a dozen cookbooks, you've won trunkfuls of awards, you were an early internet food celebrity.

So I figured, you know, without actually knowing you and knowing your work for as long as I figured, you know, I think I just assumed that you must have just loved cooking from a young age, knew that would be your career.

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