Deborah Madison

Deborah Madison is an American chef, writer, food activist, and cooking teacher. She has been called an expert on vegetarian cooking, although she is not a strict vegetarian. Her gourmet repertoire showcases fresh garden produce. Her work also highlights Slow Food, local foods and farmers' markets.

Early years Madison grew up in Davis, California, and earned a bachelor's degree with high honors in sociology/city planning in 1968 from Cowell College at the University of California, Santa Cruz. She then cooked at Chez Panisse She was the founding chef at Greens Restaurant in San Francisco which opened in 1979. She then cooked for a year at the American Academy in Rome, Italy.

Other writing She has written for the magazines Gourmet, Saveur, Food and Wine, Kitchen Gardener, Fine Cooking, Orion, Organic Gardening and Eating Well, and for the Time-Life Cookbook Series.

New Mexico Madison lives in Galisteo, New Mexico with her husband, artist Patrick McFarlin, who co-authored and illustrated their book What We Eat When We Eat Alone.

When she first moved to New Mexico, Madison managed the Santa Fe Farmers' Market and served on its board for a number of years. and was co-director of the Edible Kitchen garden at Monte del Sol Charter School in Santa Fe, New Mexico. She was a founder of Santa Fe's Café Escalara with chef David Tanis and restauranteur Brian Knox.

Awards and honors Madison received the André Simon Memorial Prize in 1987 and the M. F. K. Fisher Mid-Career Award in 1994. In addition, her cookbooks have received awards from the International Association of Culinary Professionals (IACP) and Les Dames d'Escoffie.

Madison has won five James Beard Foundation Awards, including two for her 1997 cookbook Vegetarian Cooking for Everyone (one in 1998 - James Beard Vegetarian Book Award, and one in 2016 - James Beard Cookbook Hall of Fame). She received four additional nominations, and was inducted into the James Beard Foundation's "Who's Who of Food and Beverage in America" in 2005.