We've just returned from a week away, during which time I was more or less news-free. So I've arrived home to discover that Edna Lewis has died. I am very, very sad to hear of her passing.

I first learned of Miss Lewis through Laurie Colwin's essays and it would be impossible to overstate her books' influence on my growth as a cook. She was once considered one of the best chefs in the U.S. in a time when women seldom found respect in professional kitchens. I do not think it hyperbole to say that without Edna Lewis, the grand-daughter of freed slaves homesteading in what is now Orange, Virginia, there would be no Alice Waters - at least as we know of her today - and the entire "return" to seasonally-based eating might have been delayed decades if it ever arrived at all.

Rest in peace, Miss Lewis.