I mostly choose recipes at random, so it’s interesting when I can find so much information on the lives and contributions of people associated with them. Many of the authors of the very old cookbooks I work from had some of the worst politics imaginable. Nancy Polikoff, on the other hand, spent her entire career championing causes that I happen to agree with.
When I emailed Polikoff about her onion pie recipe in the 1977 “Home Grown Recipes: A Collection of Vegetarian Recipes From the Listeners of WHFS, 102.3 FM“, she had no recollection of the cookbook. She did recall being a WHFS listener in the 1970s, a former college-radio DJ in Philadelphia, and a pescatarian (she occasionally eats chicken now.)
I grew up listening to WHFS (mostly on its 99.1 frequency) and I’ll have to make a separate post about that at some point. Polikoff’s career deserved its own post.
Nancy Polikoff author photo, Beacon Press