It was my husband Howard who dubbed me "Carter." In the late '60s, before we were married, we both worked at Mademoiselle magazine. He couldn't deal with calling me Mary Randolph and I wouldn't answer to Mary, so he started calling me by my last name. It stuck! So, though I am Mary Randolph Carter Berg, you can call me "Carter!"

Family style--plus seven new grandchildren!

"junker" baby

junking life!), I was actually born and raised in Richmond, Virginia. I am the oldest of nine children--seven girls, two boys. My first book, American Family Style, published in 1988, celebrated that experience with family recipes, decorating, entertaining and gardening tips. As the self-appointed visual archivist of my family, a lot of the photographs of the book came from my years of capturing family holidays, birthdays, weddings and the like. Obviously, I had to fill in the blanks, and have continued to shoot all the images for the rest of my books. Ralph Lauren penned the forward to American Family Style right before I joined his advertising team at Polo

	On location with team Polo.

Ralph Lauren. For the last thirteen years as Vice President of Advertising, I have traveled all across America and the world supervising the photography shoots for all of Polo Ralph Lauren's brands.

Before I joined Ralph, I was a magazine brat. As I mentioned earlier I worked at Mademoislle magazine. I actually started there right after college as a Guest Editor. (No, I did not know Sylvia Plath, but I did stay in the legendary Barbizon Hotel for Women!)

At Mlle--pre-junk style.

I stayed at Mademoislle for ten years, the last five as Beauty & Health Editor. It was the era of the Mademoiselle makeover. Did we have fun! After Mlle, I did a stint at New York Magazine developing their first fashion feature. Eventually, I went back to Conde Nast to help the start-up of Self magazine as their Creative Director. It was while I was at Self that I met Ralph, and the rest you've read.

And then there was junk...