Hey it's Francis, thank you so much for making the splendid table part of your life all year long.

This public media podcast is only possible because of you. You generously welcome us into your kitchens and we do our best to provide support and inspiration along the way.

So please donate before Memorial Day weekend to support our show.

Go to splendidtable.org slash donate and Thank you.

I'm Francis Lamb and this is the splendid table from APF. If you happen to be driving through California wine country, when you get to the town of Napa,

there's this massive sign with a quote from Robert Louis Stevenson that says,

and the wine is bottled poetry.

Now, I happen to not be a drinker myself but I get what he means, right?

How something can have flavor that changes the way you feel or can maybe even change how you see

the world. And I can say the same about certain meals I've had, but it's

funny. Considering how important food is not just to our bodies, but to our culture, that in our

country, for a very long time food wasn't considered really worthy of serious contemplation right it's not an art like opera or sculpture or poetry.

Well, that's changed a lot.

And one of the people most responsible for that change is the editor Judith Jones.

She was a legendary force in publishing.

She kind of single-handedly elevated cookbooks through the level of literature in our country.

And later in the show, we learned all about her life and legacy with the author of her biography Sarah Franklin.

But first we're going to talk to an actual poet. The best-selling poet and

essayist Amy Nes Hookum Tautil is the author of Bite by Bite, a collection

of short essays all about her favorite foods. There are tiny stories that sometimes

read like poems, with sentences so perfect you can't help but

smile when you read them. The pieces are full of humor, good vibes, deliciousness, and

...