A year ago today, on November 7 2004, my sister Ann died from the complications of multiple sclerosis.

Ann created all of the hundred-odd line drawings that illustrated the first edition of On Food & Cooking. She was a talented self-taught artist, a patient and exacting collaborator, and much more: a scholar of botany and forestry, an enthusiast of the natural world and Indian food and folk music, a loving sister and daughter and friend and wife. She endured the eighteen years of her illness with inspiring good humor and courage. I and all who knew her miss Ann very much, and remember her with joy.

Harold McGee

November 7 2005