WILLARD, Pat

PERSONAL: Married.

ADDRESSES: Home—Brooklyn, NY. Agent—c/o Author Mail, Beacon Press, 25 Beacon Street, Boston, MA 02108.

CAREER: Writer.

WRITINGS:

Pie Every Day: Recipes and Slices of Life, Algonquin Books (Chapel Hill, NC), 1997.

A Soothing Broth: Tonics, Custards, Soups, and Other Cure-alls for Colds, Coughs, Upset Tummies, and Out-of-Sorts-Days, Broadway Books (New York, NY), 1998.

Secrets of Saffron: The Vagabond Life of the World's Most Seductive Spice, Beacon Press (Boston, MA), 2001.

SIDELIGHTS: Pat Willard was introduced to pie baking while working as a waitress at the Bar Ten restaurant in Ravenna, Ohio. In Pie Every Day: Recipes and Slices of Life, Willard shares pie recipes for every occasion, step-by-step instructions, stories about American pie making traditions, and her own memories about her friends and family. Reviewing the book for Bon Appetit, Norman Kolpas noted, "You'll find satisfaction galore in Pie Every Day."

Willard researched old cookbooks, historical texts, and biographies and nursing journals of Florence Nightingale for recipes for her book A Soothing Broth: Tonics, Custards, Soups, and Other Cure-alls for Colds, Coughs, Upset Tummies, and Out-of-Sorts-Days, a collection of remedies for problems such as headaches, fevers, coughs, colds, muscle aches, and digestive problems. Willard includes stories of her own life and comments about past and present uses of the remedies.

In Secrets of Saffron: The Vagabond Life of the World's Most Seductive Spice, Willard relates the 2,000-year history of saffron, a spice that was originally used as a dye, perfume, or medicine, and later used in foods. New York Times reviewer Patricia Fieldsteel called it "fresh and thought provoking." A Publishers Weekly reviewer commented, "With an unerring ear for satisfying storytelling, Willard delivers another inventive, almost magical read."

BIOGRAPHICAL AND CRITICAL SOURCES:

PERIODICALS

Bon Appetit, January, 1998, Norman Kolpas, "More Than Just Cookbooks," p. 38.

Booklist, March 15, 1997, Mark Knoblauch, review of Pie Every Day: Recipes and Slices of Life, p. 1217; November 15, 1998, Barbara Jacobs, review of A Soothing Broth: Tonics, Custards, Soups, and Other Cure-alls for Colds, Coughs, Upset Tummies, and Out-of-Sorts-Days, p. 554.

Library Journal, April 15, 1997, Judith C. Sutton, review of Pie Every Day, p. 110.

New York Times, July 8, 2002, p. 20.

Publishers Weekly, November 2, 1998, review of A Soothing Broth, p. 79; January 22, 2001, "Spicy Adventures," p. 202; April 16, 2001, "Packs a Wallop," p. 59.

ONLINE

Weekly Wire,http://www.weeklywire.com/ (January 30, 2002), Virginia B. Wood, review of A Soothing Broth; review of Secrets of Saffron: The Vagabond Life of the World's Most Seductive Spice.