Nancy Baggett was first introduced to the pleasures of cooking in her family's farmhouse kitchen at the age of five, when she began helping her mother bake cookies and cinnamon sticky buns. "I probably wasn't much real help at that point," she notes, " but those hours with her in the kitchen gave me a sense of pride and accomplishment that I still feel whenever I cook or bake today." Nancy also recalls the times her grandmother, aunt and mother gathered to prepare traditional family recipes for the holidays. "Early on I realized that the baking together was really preserving part of our family's heritage and providing continuity from one generation to the next," she says. By the time Nancy was 13, she was accomplished enough to cook supper on the nights her mother, a school teacher, had after-school meetings. "Usually, my menu consisted of tuna casserole made from a recipe on a cream of soup can, plus applesauce and canned corn — hardly gourmet, but my meals always got eaten so I was thrilled," she recalls with a laugh. Though Nancy continued to enjoy experimenting with recipes during her teen and early adult years, cooking was just a hobby until her son was born. "After college I’d worked as a technical writer and editor and was looking for a way to keep professionally active while being an at-home mom." Once she thought about it, she says, the idea of combining her writing background with her interest in cooking "just seemed like a natural." She began selling food features to the local weekly, then to the two large newspapers in the area, The Baltimore Sun and The Washington Post. During a four-year stint when her family lived in Germany, she continued to add publishing credits, selling articles to several well-known American food magazines. "One of my first major magazine stories was on traditional German one-pot meals for Bon Appetit.," she notes. "Another was a reminiscence piece for Gourmet magazine about the childhood fun of going wild raspberry picking on our Maryland farm." Later, Gourmet’s editors included her raspberry pudding cake recipe in an article featuring their all-time favorite desserts. "I considered that very high praise," she says. Nancy’s first cookbooks were also published in the mid-1980's, when she co-authored two books on healthful family cooking and authored one on fast and easy yeast bread baking. Eventually, Nancy decided to focus on baking and desserts and spent a year in a professional pastry chef program taught by the White House Executive Pastry Chef, Roland Mesnier. She says that the professional schooling helped reinforce what she'd learned on her own over the years. Since then, Nancy has authored five more cookbooks and co-authored seven others. Her most recent book, The All-American Cookie Book, already has more than 100,000 copies in print and has been widely praised by critics and buyers. It was nominated for a 2001 Best Baking Book Award by both The International Association of Culinary Professionals and the James Beard Foundation. Her International Chocolate Cookbook was selected 1992's best dessert book by the International Association of Culinary Professionals and her perennially popular International Cookie Cookbook (more than 100,000 copies sold) is considered a classic in the field. Her co-authored work 100% Pleasure: The Lowfat Cookbook for People Who Love to Eat (140,000 copies in print) was rated one of 1994's top twelve cookbooks by USA Today. Another co-authored work, Don’t Tell ‘Em It’s Good for ‘Em, was a Tastemaker Award nominee. Known for both lively writing and irresistible recipes that always work, Nancy has contributed recipes and articles to many major magazines and newspapers, including Food & Wine, The Ladies' Home Journal, Woman's Day, House Beautiful, Chocolatier, Cooking Light, American Health, The New York Times, and The Los Angeles Times. She previously served as contributing authority for Eating Well magazine and was special consultant for the cookie chapter of The New Joy of Cooking. Nancy is a frequent television and radio guest chef and has appeared on "Good Morning America," "CBS This Morning," CNN, the Food Television Network, the Discovery Channel, Lifetime Television, and scores of other national and local shows. Additionally, she presents workshops, classes, talks and demonstrations for organizations including the Smithsonian Institution, the International Association of Culinary Professionals, the New York Women's Culinary Alliance, as well as many events and cooking schools around the country. Nancy Baggett is a member of the Washington, DC chapter of Les Dames d'Escoffier, The Association of Food Journalists, The International Association of Culinary Professionals, and the American Institute of Wine and Food. She holds a BA in English and an MS in Public Relations and is a graduate of the Professional Pastry Program at L’Academie de Cuisine. The mother of a grown son, David, Nancy lives in Maryland with her husband Charlie and toy poodle Beauregard. "After almost thirty years, I still love writing and creating recipes, so I must have made the right career choice for me," Nancy sums up.