Dimbleby, Josceline (Rose) 1943-

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DIMBLEBY, Josceline (Rose) 1943-

PERSONAL: Born 1943, in England; daughter of Thomas Josceline Gaskell; married David Dimbleby (a television commentator), 1967 (divorced, 2000), children: Liza, Henry, Kate. Education: Attended Guildhall School of Music. Hobbies and other interests: Singing, travel.

ADDRESSES: Home—18 Ashchurch Park Villas, London W12 9SP, England. E-mail—[email protected].

CAREER: Author, food writer, and editor. Sainsbury's (supermarket chain), London, England, food writer, 1978-97; Sunday Telegraph, London, food editor, 1982-97. Demonstrator at home and trade shows; guest on television programs, including Masterchef and Good Food Program.

AWARDS, HONORS: Andre Simon Award, 1979; Glenfiddich Cookery Writer of the Year Award, 1993.

WRITINGS:

A Taste of Dreams: Josceline Dimbleby's Cookery Book, illustrated by Nicholas Dimbleby, Hodder & Stoughton (London, England), 1976, published as A Taste of Dreams: Cookery Book, 1979, published as A Taste of Dreams, illustrated by Peggy Chapman, Sphere (London, England), 1980.

Party Pieces: Special Recipes to Celebrate the Queen's Silver Jubilee, 1952-1977, Crafts Advisory Committee (London, England), 1977.

Cooking for Christmas, Woodhead-Faulkner (Cambridge, England), 1978.

Cooking with Herbs and Spices, Woodhead-Faulkner (Cambridge, England), 1979.

Family Meat and Fish Cookery, Woodhead-Faulkner (Cambridge, England), 1979.

Josceline Dimbleby's Book of Puddings, Desserts, and Savouries, Hodder & Stoughton (London, England), 1979.

Curries and Oriental Cookery, Woodhead-Faulkner (Cambridge, England), 1980.

Salads for All Seasons, Woodhead-Faulkner (Cambridge, England), 1981.

Festive Food and Party Pieces, Woodhead-Faulkner (Cambridge, England), 1982.

Favourite Food, Allen Lane (London, England), 1983.

Sweet Dreams: Puddings and Pies, Gâteaux and Ices, and Lots More, Woodhead-Faulkner (Cambridge, England), 1983.

Marvellous Meals with Mince, Woodhead-Faulkner (Cambridge, England), 1983.

First Impressions, Woodhead-Faulkner (Cambridge, England), 1984.

Main Attractions, Woodhead-Faulkner (Cambridge, England), 1985.

A Traveller's Tastes: Recipes from around the World, Martin Books (Cambridge, England), 1986.

The Josceline Dimbleby Christmas Book, Woodhead-Faulkner (Cambridge, England), 1987.

The Essential Josceline Dimbleby, Simon & Schuster (New York, NY), 1989.

Soups and Starters, Martin Books (Cambridge, England), 1991.

Puddings and Desserts, Martin Books (Cambridge, England), 1991.

Josceline Dimbleby's Christmas, Conran Octopus (London, England), 1994.

The Josceline Dimbleby Complete Cookbook, HarperCollins (London, England), 1997.

The Practically Vegetarian Cookbook, Random House (London, England), 1994.

Sainsbury's the Almost Vegetarian Cookbook, Websters International Publishers (London, England), 1994.

Josceline Dimbleby's Almost Vegetarian Cookbook, photography by Simon Wheeler, Websters International Publishers (London, England), 1999.

Josceline Dimbleby's Cooking Course, Websters International Publishers (London, England), 1999.

The Cooking Enthusiast: An Illustrated Culinary Encyclopedia, Rutledge Hill Press (Nashville, TN), 2000.

A Profound Secret: May Gaskell, Her Daughter Amy, and Edward Burne-Jones (family history), Doubleday (New York, NY), 2004, published as May and Amy: A True Story of Family, Forbidden Love,and the Secret Lives of May Gaskell, Her Daughter Amy, and Sir Edward Burne-Jones, Harmony Books (New York, NY), 2005.

Also author of The Josceline Dimbleby Collection, 1984, The Josceline Dimbleby Book of Entertaining, 1988, and The Cook's Companion, 1991.

Regular contibutor to BBC Good Food, 1993-94, and Ideal Home, 1999-2000; contributor to other periodicals, including Conde Nast Traveller.

SIDELIGHTS: Josceline Dimbleby established a reputation as one of England's favorite food writers with books such as A Taste of Dreams: Josceline Dimbleby's Cookery Book, The Essential Josceline Dimbleby, and Josceline Dimbleby's Almost Vegetarian Cookbook. Dimbleby proved her ability to write about more than cooking and entertaining with her book of family history, A Profound Secret: May Gaskell, Her Daughter Amy, and Edward Burne-Jones. This complex story is drawn from letters Dimbleby discovered among family possessions, which showed that her great-grandmother, May Gaskell, was involved in a passionate friendship with the painter Edward Burne-Jones. Gaskell was married, a mother of three children, and twenty years younger than Burne-Jones, and he told her that she must keep their relationship a secret. Yet she could not bring herself to destroy his letters to her. Through them, Dimbleby pieced together bits of her family's history, including the mysterious death of Amy Gaskell. Strong-minded and independent, Amy had left her husband to travel in Ceylon, but returned emaciated and withdrawn, and died shortly thereafter. Family legend held that she died of a broken heart. In A Profound Secret, Dimbleby explores her ancestors' stories and her own reactions to the sometimes tragic events she unearthed during the course of her research. The result is a "delightful book" that will arouse "enjoyment and admiration," according to Simon Poe in Apollo. Reviewing A Profound Secret in Spectator, David Hughes praised Dimbleby's style as "elegiac and affectionate," and went on to say: "Far from exhuming a musty past, her pages smack of the present. Even minor figures … seem to be crisper and more vivid than fiction, thanks to the author's gift for breathing new life into old papers."