The Kitchen Whisperers: Cooking with the Wisdom of Our Friends

A beautifully written tribute to the people who teach us to cook and guide our hands in the kitchen, by a founding editor of Saveur.

“[The book features] many of the culinary names [Kalins] worked with . . . like Colman Andrews, Marcella Hazan, Michael Anthony and Anita Lo. Through her eyes and lively prose, they provide [a] compelling common-sense approach to food that will easily resonate with experienced cooks and should bolster the confidence of novices.” — New York Times

The cooking lessons that stick with us are rarely the ones we read in books or learn through blog posts or YouTube videos (depending on your generation); they’re the ones we pick up as we spend time with good cooks in the kitchen. Dorothy Kalins, founding editor of Savuer magazine, calls the people who pass on their cooking wisdom her Kitchen Whisperers. Consciously or not, they help make us the cooks we are—and help show the way to the kind of cooks we have the potential to become.

Dorothy’s prolific career in food media means many of her Kitchen Whisperers are some of the best chefs around (though the lessons she’s learned from fellow home cooks are just as important). For Dorothy, a lifetime of exposure to incredible cooks and chefs means that she can’t enter her kitchen without hearing the voices of mentors and friends with whom she cooked over the years as they reveal their favorite techniques. Marcella Hazan warns her against valuing look over flavor. Christopher Hirsheimer advises that sometimes water is the best liquid to add to a dish rather than stock or wine. Her onetime Southern mother-in-law wisely knows that not everyone who asks for a biscuit is food hungry. Woven through the text are dozens of narrative recipes, from her mother’s meat loaf to David Tanis’s Swiss Chard Gratin.

The Kitchen Whisperers will prompt older readers to identify and cherish the food mentors in their own lives, just as it will inspire younger readers to seek them out. Stories and recipes from Dorothy’s notable connections will inspire the creative food journeys of all.

This heartfelt memoir invites you to ask: who are the voices that echo in your own kitchen?

• Cooking Wisdom: Learn timeless lessons from legends like Marcella Hazan, who warns against valuing looks over flavor, and David Tanis, who reveals the secrets to a perfect gratin.
• Narrative Recipes: Discover dozens of recipes woven into the stories that gave them meaning, from the author’s mother’s meat loaf to the perfect buttermilk biscuits from a beloved mother-in-law.
• A Life in Food: Go behind the scenes with the founding editor of Saveur magazine as she shares a lifetime of exposure to the world’s most incredible cooks and chefs.
• Personal Essays on Food: Explore the powerful, emotional connections we form in the kitchen and celebrate the mentors who shape the cooks we become.

Dorothy Kalins is an award-winning magazine editor, the founding editor-in-chief of Metropolitan Home and of Saveur magazine, and the former executive editor of Newsweek. She has collaborated on the production of many award-winning cookbooks, including David Tanis’s A Platter of Figs, Michael Anthony’s The Gramercy Tavern Cookbook and V is for Vegetables, and Michael Solomonov and Steven Cook’s bestselling Zahav and Israeli Soul. In 2018, she was honored with induction into the American Society of Magazine Editors’ Hall of Fame. Dorothy was the first woman ever named Adweek’s Editor of the Year. She has won two James Beard Awards, and in 2013 was voted into the James Beard Foundation’s Who’s Who of Food & Beverage in America. She lives in New York City with her husband, the filmmaker Roger Sherman.

Danny Meyer is the founder of Union Square Hospitality Group, which has created some of New York’s most beloved restaurants, including Union Square Cafe, Gramercy Tavern, Eleven Madison Park, Tabla, The Modern, Blue Smoke, Maialino, Ci Siamo, Daily Provisions and more. He is also the founder of Shake Shack, co-founder of Enlightened Hospitality Investments, and is a sought-after speaker and educator, setting industry standards for innovative hiring practices, building culture, corporate responsibility, and leading change.