A native of Southern California who, as a kid, spent many summer weeks in her parents’ home state of Hawaii, Dawn Yanagihara studied studio art and French language and literature in—where else?—upstate New York. After graduating and spending half a year trying to figure things out, she realized she was much better at making food than art and preferred to eat madeleines than read about them. So she attended culinary school on the East Coast and took courses in pâtisserie and viennoiserie at École Lenôtre in France. In Boston, she worked late nights and early mornings as an assistant pastry chef in an esteemed French bistro where she learned restaurant baking wasn’t exactly her cup of tea. She then accepted a job as test cook at Cook’s Illustrated magazine and has been in food publishing ever since—as a recipe developer, copywriter, website editor, author, cookbook editor, and food editor. Now living back in Los Angeles, she is still very keen on baking, loves sweets, and is smitten with the food and culture of Thailand. She chooses cocktails over wine, waffles over pancakes, and onion rings over French fries.