Food Writer. She authored eleven best-selling cookbooks, in the process introducing American palates to a new standard of cuisine elegance. Raised in Norwalk, later in Westport, Connecticut, Sheila was educated at the Tyler School of Fine Arts, and the School of Visual Arts, prior to earning a degree in art education from New York University in 1970. She moved to London with her then-husband, and trained at Le Cordon Bleu before refining her art with chefs in Bordeaux. Returning to America in 1977, Sheila ran a catering business out of her apartment in the Dakota, then partnered with Julee Rosso to open The Silver Palate, a small, upscale, gourmet food store on Manhattan's Upper West Side. The ladies introduced New Yorkers to such previously unfamiliar southern and eastern European fare as Moroccan chicken pie, gazpacho, and Greek mezes. Published in 1982, "The Silver Palate Cookbook" broke records by selling 250,000 copies in the first year, while making chicken Marbella and blackberry mousse (with kiwi fruit) known to many; it remains in print, and on the all-time best-seller list, with 2.5 million copies bought so far. "The Silver Palate Good Times Cookbook" followed in 1984, winning a James Beard Award in the entertaining category; the "The New Basics Cookbook" was to appear in 1989, but the store had been sold in 1988 (it closed in 1993), and by this time Sheila and Rosso were into the feud that broke-up the partnership. In 1986, Sheila was named to succeed the legendary Julia Child as food editor of "Parade", and was to turn out a monthly column until her final illness. She continued to pen cookbooks after splitting with Rosso (there was one final joint effort, a 2005 25th. anniversary re-release of "The New Basics Cookbook"), her last solo offering being the 2003 "Celebrate"; in all, her works have achieved sales of more than seven million copies. She died of a recently diagnosed malignant brain tumor.