About the Author

Mary Browne, Helen Leach and Nancy Tichborne are best known for their joint books The Cook's Garden (1980), More from the Cook's Garden (1987), The New Zealand Bread Book (1981), The Cook's Salad Garden (1997) and The Cook's Herb Garden (2001). Mary Browne, gardener, author and food writer, has been growing herbs for 50 years. She grew and photographed all the herbs in this book and devised and tested the recipes. For many years she wrote a monthly column for NZ House & Garden entitled 'Earthly Pleasures', based on her extensive kitchen garden at Palmerston, Otago. Mary collaborated with Helen on The Pavlova Story. Helen Leach has written for academic and popular audiences on New Zealand's garden history and culinary traditions. For this book she has extensively researched and written about the history of each herb. Helen is also the author of 1000 Years of Gardening in New Zealand, Cultivating Myths and The Pavlova Story. She is an Emeritus Professor of Anthropology at the University of Otago and a Fellow of the Royal Society of New Zealand, and she lives in Dunedin. Nancy Tichborne is best known as a watercolour artist who produces calendars featuring flowers, gardens and cats, among other things. Nancy Tichborne's Flowers and Nancy Tichborne's Cats featured her work in book form, and her most recent book is Nancy Tichborne's Watercolour World. Her contribution to this book is the beautiful watercolour illustrations of herbs. Nancy lives on Banks Peninsula.