The Interview: Barbara Kafka

The extraordinary Barbara Kafka wrote cookbooks that make home cooks confident and food taste delicious, and that also won lots of awards for their rigor, inspiration and flavor. Her Microwave Gourmet was a breakthrough, but her many other books about roasting, making soup, cooking vegetables, and cooking flavorful meals for those of us who have food allergies became kitchen bookshelf essentials.The food world recognized her with two Lifetime Achievement Awards from the James Beard Foundation, as well as the Beard Cookbook Hall of Fame Award.

In this conversation we talked with her about what's new in microwave cooking, favorite recipes, and how home cooking continues to evolve.

Barbara Kafka died on June 1, 2018. We had the privilege and pleasure of talking with her twice, this time in 2008. Our second conversation was in 2012 upon the publication of her last cookbook, The Intolerant Gourmet.  She was a really splendid woman.