Joan Nathan was born in Providence, Rhode Island. She has earned a master's degree from both the University of Michigan and Harvard University. Ms. Nathan writes for The New York Times and other publications and is the author of numerous books, including Jewish Cooking in America, which won both the James Beard Award and the IACP / Julia Child Cookbook of the Year Award in 1994. Drawing on her research for The New Cooking in America, she was the guest curator of Food Culture USA at the 2005 Smithsonian Folklife Festival. She is the mother of three grown children and lives with her husband in Washington, D.C.