John McQuaid has written about topics such as city-destroying super-termites, the slow collapse of fishing communities, hurricane levee engineering, mountaintop removal coal mining, and the global flower business for publications including Smithsonian magazine, The Washington Post, Wired, Forbes.com, EatingWell magazine and the New Orleans Times-Picayune. He is the co-author of Path of Destruction: The Devastation of New Orleans and the Coming Age of Superstorms. His work has won a Pulitzer Prize, as well as awards from the American Association for the Advancement of Science and the International Association of Culinary Professionals. He lives in Silver Spring, Maryland, with his wife, son and daughter. The struggle to satisfy and understand the kids' strange and contradictory food choices (the elder liked super-hot peppers and limes, the younger rice, pasta and cheese) was the inspiration for Tasty.