How to Cook Everything Fast: A Better Way to Cook

Book Preface

How to Cook Everything Fast—let’s just call it Fast—has been, like all the books in this series, a massive undertaking (do you feel how heavy it is?), a huge and (for those of us involved in it) hugely important project, many years in conception and quite a few in the making. It’s not just a big book, and it’s not just a good recipe collection: It’s a collection of recipes in a style we’ve devised to teach you how to cook in the way people who really know how do all the time.

It wasn’t easy, and I didn’t do it by myself. In fact, like all the How to Cook Everything books, this was a team effort. Kerri Conan and I have now worked on something like ten books together, and none of them would’ve happened without her. On this one, our efforts were eased by those of Daniel Meyer, who bore the lion’s share of recipe conception, writing, and testing; and Jennifer Griffin, who was the editor of the original How to Cook Everything (1997!) and has joined us in getting things ready for our current editors at HMH, chief among them the stellar Adam Kowit.

Others who deserve credit on “our” side include my agent of 25-plus years, Angela Miller; the great Chris Benton; and Megan Gourley, Eve Turow, Elena Goldblatt, Maria Fantaci, and David Bowers. At HMH, we are lucky enough to have been working under the steady hands of Bruce Nichols and Natalie Chapman, and we owe gratitude to the amazing Rebecca Liss, the steadfast Linda Ingroia, and to Molly Aronica, Brad Parsons, Jessica Gilo, Marina Padakis Lowry, Jamie Selzer, David Futato, Tom Hyland, Kevin Watt, Michaela Sullivan, Melissa Lotfy, and of course the wonderful Laurie Brown.

We talk a lot about text and recipes, because we—most of the people mentioned above—work in words. But designing Fast took about 30,000 iterations (okay, an exaggeration; 20,000) until it reached what we believe is the gorgeous, accessible, well-organized book you’re holding. That design is thanks to MGMT. Design: Alicia Cheng, Pilar Torcal, and Olivia de Salve Villedieu, who also did the helpful illustrations scattered throughout.

Some people’s roles cannot be easily defined but were critical nevertheless. These folks include Sean Santoro, Wendy and Kim Marcus, John Willoughby, and Trish Hall. Other friends and family will presumably forgive me for not singling them out—you know who you are.

Finally, the amount contributed here by Kelly Doe can’t be overestimated. The imprints of her index finger are everywhere.