About the Authors
Annette Sandoval’s writing is tightly bound to her experience as a Mexican-American. The youngest of five children, she began life in the barrio neighborhoods of Santa Ana, California.She was named after a Mouseketeer--her mother wanted one of her children to have an "American" name. Her parents were both born in the Mexican state of Jalisco. Her father, Manuel, worked as a migrant worker and later as a janitor in a convent, where he was sponsored for green card status. After securing work and papers, he sent for his fifteen-year-old bride, Felicitas.
Annette moved to San Francisco at the age of 21 and spent the next decade backpacking around the world, touring nearly every continent on her own. She is the author of The Directory of Saints (Dutton/Penguin), which appeared in hardback in 1996. The book has subsequently been issued in paperback and in a Spanish language edition for the international market. Her second book, Homegrown Healing: Traditional Home Remedies from Mexico (Putnam/Berkely), published in 1998, is one of the first modern works preserving this rich oral tradition. Spitfire (Thomas & Mercer) 2012, a
whodunit mystery, has also been translated into German.
Annette lives in Newport, Rhode Island with Pip and their two dogs.
Celebrating a life-long appreciation for delicious, health-supportive foods, Melanie Rogers walked away from the exciting world of nonprofit fund development to earn her Natural Chef certification at Bauman College in Berkeley, CA, where she began penning recipes rather than funding proposals.
Living in the Bay Area, Melanie has always enjoyed northern California’s bounty of fresh produce, cheese, fish, meat, and importantly, wine. Blame her eastern European roots, but her love of pickles started her down a path of vegetable fermentation, only eventually to become certified through the University of California’s Cooperative Extension as a Master Food Preserver. She serves as a community volunteer with fellow food enthusiasts to teach safe and research-based food preservation methods in classes throughout San Francisco and San Mateo counties.
Melanie currently lives in Moss Beach, California, enjoys walking the cypress groves and beach bluff trails, and shares her home with one bearded man, two hungry cats, and a multitude of bubbling jars and crocks filled with delicious salty treats.
