Tomatoes for Neela

Padma Lakshmi is an Emmy-nominated food expert, television producer, and New York Times bestselling author. She is the creator of the critically-acclaimed Hulu series Taste the Nation with Padma Lakshmi, and served as host and executive producer of Bravo’s Top Chef for nineteen seasons. She is co-founder of the Endometriosis Foundation of America, a United Nations Goodwill Ambassador and an ACLU Artist Ambassador for immigrants’ rights and women’s rights. She is the author of Easy Exotic, Tangy, Tart, Hot & Sweet, The Encyclopedia of Spices & Herbs, her New York Times best-selling memoir Love, Loss, and What We Ate, and the best-selling children’s book Tomatoes for Neela.

Juana Martinez-Neal is the Peruvian-born daughter and granddaughter of painters. Her debut as an author-illustrator, Alma and How She Got Her Name, was awarded a Caldecott Honor, and her follow-up, Zonia’s Rain Forest, was named an American Library Association Top 10 Sustainability-Themed Children’s Book. Juana has illustrated numerous picture books, including the New York Times bestselling Tomatoes for Neela by Padma Lakshmi; Fry Bread: A Native American Family Story by Kevin Noble Maillard, which won the Robert F. Sibert Medal; and La Princesa and the Pea by Susan M. Elya, for which she won a Pura Belpré Illustrator Award.