About the Author

Clifford A. Wwright is a cook, food writer, and research scholar specializing in the cuisines of the Mediterranean. He is the author of six cookbooks and writes frequently for Saveur, Fine Cooking, Gourmet, Bon Appetit, and Food & Wine, as well as having written all the food entries for Columbia University's Encyclopedia of the Modern Middle East. Wright is also a nationally recognized cook. He was chosen as one of the most innovative cooks in America by The New York Times in its Cooks on the Map series for his style of emphasizing regional Mediterranean home cooking with its historical background. Before writing about food, Wright had a successful career in the field of international affairs, beginning as a researcher at the Brookings Institution in Washington, D.C., then as a staff fellow at the Institute of Arab Studies in Cambridge, Massachusetts, and finally as the executive director of the American Middle East Peace Research Institute. Wright received his master of arts degree in philosophy from the graduate faculty of the New School for Social Research in New York, where he was also a doctoral candidate. Today, while he continues his writing and cooking, Wright is a center affiliate of the Gustav E. von Grunebaum Center for Near Eastern Studies at the University of California-Los Angeles. Born in New York, he lived for many years in the Boston area and now resides in Santa Monica, California, with his three children.