Amanda Hesser will be in Seattle for an Arts & Lectures event at Benaroya Hall on March 8th.

Edible Seattle’s Alida Moore had a chance to catch up with this incredible food author recently:

“When it comes to cooking, I have very little confidence. I am a baker, comfortable with butter, flour, sugar, and leavening. Cooking is an entirely different monster. I’m the type of girl who will shop for a recipe, begin cooking, and realize I forgot an ingredient (or three). Instead of forging onward, I panic and turn the entire mess into a salad.

Enter Amanda Hesser and Food52, perhaps the greatest website for the home cook I’ve ever seen. Hesser (and her partner, Merrill Stubbs) launched Food52 in 2009 as a way to crowd-source their cookbook. What formed was a community for the sophisticated (or, in my case, wannabe sophisticated) home cook. Members participate in recipe contests, contribute to an extensive database of tested recipes, and offer immediate guidance on the site’s hotline, in case you are in the middle of making dinner and find yourself missing a key ingredient.

Amanda Hesser is the author of The Essential New York Times Cookbook, winner of a James Beard award and a New York Times bestseller. She will be in Seattle on Thursday, March 8th as part ofSeattle Arts and Lectures at Benaroya Hall. The busy food writer, editor, cookbook author, and mother of 5-year-old twins took the time to speak with me about her love for the home cook, Food52, and how to raise adventurous eaters.”

Check out her full article, here.