Called
"the doyenne of Jewish-American food,"
Joan Nathan is the author of nine
cookbooks and a regular contributor to
the New York Times. She is also
the author of the much acclaimed
Jewish Cooking in America, which in
1994 won both the James Beard Award and
the IACP/Julia Child Cookbook of the
Year Award; as well as An American
Folklife Cookbook, which received the
R.T. French Tastemaker Award in 1985.
Her other books include Foods of
Israel Today, Joan Nathan’s
Jewish Holiday Kitchen, The
Jewish Holiday Baker, The
Children’s Jewish Holiday Kitchen,
The Jewish Holiday Kitchen, and
The Flavor of Jerusalem.
Ms.
Nathan’s PBS television series, Jewish
Cooking in America with Joan Nathan, was
nominated in 2000 for the James Beard
Award for Best National Television Food
Show. She was also senior producer of
Passover: Traditions of Freedom, an
award-winning documentary sponsored by
Maryland Public Television.
An
inductee to the James Beard Foundation’s
Who’s Who in American Food and Beverage,
she has also received the Silver Spoon
Award from Food Arts Magazine. In
addition, Ms. Nathan received an
honorary degree from Spertus Institute
of Jewish Culture in Chicago and the
Golda Award from the American Jewish
Congress.
Joan
Nathan’s most recent cookbook, The
New American Cooking, explores the
many innovators and innovations that
have influenced American food over the
past forty years. Recently she was the
guest curator of Food Culture USA, the
2005 Smithsonian Folklife Festival on
the National Mall. The festival was
based on the research for this book.
She
lives in Washington, DC, with her
husband, attorney Allan Gerson, and has
three
