Chef Ozcan Ozan grew up in Izmir, Turkey, and has been cooking for nearly thirty years. Before coming to Boston he cooked professionally in Europe and Turkey, learning his craft in the traditional European fashion of working at each kitchen position until he became an executive chef. He attended the Cordon Bleu cooking school in Paris. He is a member of the James Beard Association and cooked for the 1995 James Beard Awards dinner. His restaurant, Sultan's Kitchen, has been profiled in the Boston Phoenix as well as the Boston Globe and was selected as the Best Middle Eastern Restaurant in Boston for 1997 by Boston Magazine. Zagat Restaurant Survey has ranked Sultan's Kitchen as Boston's Best Middle Eastern Restaurant for four years. Ozcan has appeared on TV and radio programs here and abroad. He lives north of Boston with his wife and two sons.

Photographer Carl Tremblay is well known for his knack of bringing out the beauty in food and food-related objects. He created the photographs for The Olives Table (1997), and his work regularly appears in Boston Magazine as well as Cook's Illustrated, Inc. Magazine, and Yankee magazine.