The Royal Chef At Home: Easy Seasonal Entertaining

Thank you to Colin Snider at Bentwood of Dallas for letting me use his gorgeous kitchen for my cover shot and to Stephan Kjeldgard for jumping in when I needed a butler to hold canapés. A special thank you to David Rodriguez for the fabulous lemons photo. And finally, thank you to Fiona Bills and Lauren Gow at Bright Sky Press for helping me create the book I really wanted to share with you. I hope you enjoy it! A project like this takes an enormous amount of time, coordination, dedication and team work. I would like to say thank you to my team mates for helping bring this project to fruition. To Darren and Susan for believing that I had the vision to bring these recipes to life in photographs. To Jesse Chacon for being a steady and loyal assistant. And finally to my wife Stacey and my daughters Sydney and Lea for allowing me to use some of our precious family time to work on this project. I hope the pictures make you all proud. – Darren McGrady

Many thanks to the people at Bright Sky Press, especially Fiona Bills and Lauren Gow who patiently guided us through the process from start to finish. Their talented advice helped immeasurably, especially in those manuscript moments where the forest is difficult to see for all the trees. I want to thank the ever patient and generous Dick Patrick, whose lovely photos grace the pages of this book. My deepest regards and thanks go to Darren McGrady, without whose friendship and enthusiasm this book would never have happened. Things really are more fun the second time around! My greatest appreciation though is for the support and encouragement given unstintingly by my husband and children. Seth, Theo and Olivia, you make everything seem possible.

– Susan Ruffins

– Dick Patrick

7 ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS