We are in the midst of packing as we move to our new house. One advantage of all this packing is re-discovering books. One book I found was the above book which consists of letters between culinary legends James Beard and Helen Evans Brown. In this book are several references to New York Times food editor Jane Nickerson. Beard writes in a letter to Evans: “Going to four parties for Jane this week. She leaves next week for Florida, and how we all hate to see her go. She has done more for dignified food coverage than anyone. Everyone will miss her keenly, and I more than most, for she…

The popular book, the United States of Arugula, includes several references to the New York Times first food editor, Jane Nickerson. In it, author David Kamp described the 1950s “emergence of a true food establishment in America, a small group of New York-based sophisticates who, via newspaper columns, magazine work, and cookbooks, had national even international reach.” He included in this group James Beard, McCalls’s food editor Helen McCully, Associated Press food editor Cecily Brownstone, Clementine Paddleford of the Herald Tribune and Nickerson. He wrote that the members of this group, “kept one another’s counsel, exchanged gossip, and stood united in opposition to the quick-bake, canned-soup mores of the domestic…