A food writer, librarian and historian, Becky Libourel Diamond has had a varied career combining writing and research. Her latest book, The Gilded Age Christmas Cookbook: Cookies and Treats from America’s Golden Era, launched in September 2025. Each recipe provides a colorful glimpse into the Gilded Age, featuring the history behind each treat, its ingredients and baking methods. Sidebars throughout offer tidbits of Christmas lore of the era. Now available for purchase on Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Books-a-Million, Bookshop.org, Globe Pequot, Hudson Booksellers, or Walmart. Her previous book, The Gilded Age Cookbook, was published by Globe Pequot in August 2023 and transports the reader back in time to elegant dinner tables set with snow-white linen tablecloths, delicate china, and sparkling crystal glasses. Gilded Age details and entertaining stories of celebrities from the era—the Vanderbilts, Astors, Goelets, and Goulds—are melded with historic menus and recipes updated for modern kitchens.

She is also the author of The Thousand Dollar Dinner, the unique story of a nineteenth century “Top Chef”-style competition between Philadelphia restauranteur James Parkinson and the Delmonico family of New York. The result was a luxurious seventeen course feast that helped launch fine restaurant dining in America as we know it today. Her first book was Mrs. Goodfellow: The Story of America’s Cooking School, a successful nineteenth century pastry chef who also ran an innovative cooking school for young women - a Philadelphia first. 

She is currently working on a history of the City Tavern restaurant, to be published by Westholme in the summer of 2026. 

If you'd like to book Becky for a speaking engagement, research project, food demonstration, book club discussion or other type of event, you can reach her via email: beckyldiamond@yahoo.com.

Fees negotiable depending on location, type of event, etc.

Becky is represented by Linda Konner Literary Agency