When she was growing up in Davis, California, Deborah Madison would float down the irrigation ditches of the walnut groves near her house, ending up miles away.  That image could illustrate how this autobiography unfolds.  If you, too, remember the years of heavy brown baked goods and fake meat and wondered how she came up with gourmet vegetarian recipes in her seminal work Vegetarian Cooking for Everyone, this book maps the answer.  Many years as an acolyte and  cook in a San Francisco Buddhist center gave her a fundamental sense of appreciation of her ingredients, as well as abundant local access.  Her teachers included classic French cuisine cookbooks, stints at Chez Panisse and the American Academy in Rome, and the creation of two groundbreaking vegetarian restaurants.  Including authorship of award-winning cookbooks, work on the board of the Seed Savers Exchange and on the committee of the Slow Food Foundation for Biodiversity, Madison’s engagement in creating delicious, sustaining and sustainable food charts an inspiring course.