I believe anyone can cook. I believe that a home-cooked meal made from scratch—preferably with organic ingredients (and maybe even homegrown)—is one of the greatest pleasures in life. I believe that when you cut through all the confusion about food and cooking—the fears and insecurities, social pressures, false ideals, or just plain not knowing where to begin—this is where you can begin, right here. I will help you.
In this book, you will find what you need to get to the essence of good, delicious food in the simplest way. So whether you are just beginning and don’t even know how to cook an egg, or you’re old and jaded like me and have seen it all, I’ll show you how to get to simple, from scratch.
Cooking from scratch isn’t about impressing friends and neighbors (although you probably will); it’s about nourishing our families and ourselves. And the truth is, when it comes to making delicious and easy food from scratch, it truly is freaking easy! You can do this—I know you can. And I know you can because I did. Let me tell you my story.
I grew up in one of the most interesting moments, in the most interesting home, with the most interesting food stories possible if you were born in 1962. I spent my childhood on the first official organic farm in America, but I didn’t realize that as a kid. All I knew was that the barn was filled with fascinating things, and the fruits and vegetables straight from plants were delicious, and the chickens, pigs, cows, and sheep were both adorable and good to eat.
Even still, I remember being hungry a lot. As the fourth child of five kids in a family where both parents worked, I was constantly foraging for food in my own home and in the garden, and watching what was happening in my friends’ homes like a hungry anthropologist. Their food was different. Not all of the time, but some of the time. And in some cases there was no rhyme nor reason to it. For instance, we ate tomato soup from a can just like everyone else. We were never allowed to eat at McDonald’s though, and yet a bucket of Kentucky Fried Chicken was a huge treat for us.
Being in a family business that published books and magazines about healthy food, organic gardening and farming, and fitness (at a time when we were pretty much the only ones doing it) brought all sorts of people from all over the world to our farm—often with extreme ideas of what was right or wrong to eat. In the late 1960s, the hippies started to come. In the 1970s, Olympic cyclists from all over the world came to eat at our house on a regular basis. Almost every dinner was some sort of adventure.
My mother fed them all. Not quite happily, mind you, but on time and in abundance. She was a living embodiment of a woman trapped in a traditional wife and mother role, yet who found true satisfaction in her job, which she was not paid for. The feminist movement was unfolding around her, but with five kids and a family business, equality would have to wait. We all helped, but usually not as much as she wanted us to.
And in our kitchen, like most kitchens around the world, some kind of drama would play out—the drama between my mother and father. The drama between kids. The drama between visitors with different food philosophies. The drama between people at work with different business philosophies. At some point I realized that I much preferred to eat food than to participate in drama. But I watched and paid attention and started to notice things.
I noticed that once people were well fed they were a lot less angry. I noticed that a good meal unites people. I noticed that drinking was fine and fun until someone drank too much and then it wasn’t fun at all. I noticed that skinny people weren’t always happy or nice. And just because your body might be shaped like an athlete’s, it wasn’t always healthy. And I noticed that while people were arguing about what was the right way to eat and the wrong way to eat, it seemed to me that the most important thing was that the food should come from nature and be real, not fake. For example, I was always suspicious of margarine. It didn’t taste right and it was artificial. I refused to eat it.
Of course, I wanted all my food to be organic. But it was super hard back then. This was the time when food co-ops were just starting, and the produce looked horrible and the grain often had moth infestations. We briefly had an organic grocery store in town, but it went out of business. So I had to mostly shop at the health food store, where choices were limited and the smell of weird vitamins filled the air. But in order to live I went to the regular supermarket just like everyone else. I was used to compromising.
When I went out on my own, as a single mother aged 20, my only cooking specialty at the time was a zucchini, garlic, and tomato sauté to which my mother said: “I hope you find someone to marry who likes garlic.” So there I was in my little apartment with my little baby and a box of Bisquick—because that was ubiquitous in my mother’s house—and one day I happened to read the label, which listed a bunch of highly refined and processed ingredients. I had an existential crisis.
You see, despite my father being the leader in the organic farming movement, and passionate about eating healthy, my mother was Pennsylvania Dutch, which means she was hardheaded and cooked a certain way—her way, Bisquick included. And who could blame her? My father was known to bring surprise guests home for dinner all the time, without notice. And he expected dinner on the table every night at 5:30 p.m. sharp.
From my perspective, the best thing was that no matter who came to dinner, we all sat down together. It didn’t matter what the meal was, the conversation was almost always fascinating. But I could often feel my father’s shame about the difference between what he preached and what his wife practiced at home. So I decided then and there, with that Bisquick box in my hand, that I would learn to make healthier organic meals that tasted like good home cooking.
I was interested in making healthier, organic choices not only because I was a parent, but because for lunch I could go to our company dining room—called “Fitness House,” and it was right across the street from my home—and get incredible, delicious organic meals. The chef was a woman named Nancy Albright, and she wrote The Rodale Cookbook, which was a bible of healthy recipes for many people at the time. Fitness House wasn’t open to the public; it was only for Rodale’s employees. It was the place where we all sat at communal tables and talked about anything and everything—particularly heated discussions about whether the Mac or PC would win the computer race!
My cooking bible was (and still often is) the original Joy of Cooking. I’ve never wanted the fancy stuff, just the basics from scratch so I could make them with organic ingredients. So instead of using Bisquick with the long list of strange and fake ingredients, I made my own pancakes in a pinch. Who needs a box when the original not only tastes better, but is actually easier to make? Yes, easier. And organic. It made me start to feel that whole generations of Americans were the victims of a hoax by the processed food companies. And maybe we still are.
My brother David was probably the first “foodie” I ever met. He left for New York City and Provincetown and made a living as a waiter while being a writer. When he came home he was always trying new things and telling stories of the foods he ate. He was hysterically funny and totally believed the Mac would win the race. But then he died of AIDS in 1985 and a shadow fell over our family.
I had moved to Washington, DC, with my daughter Maya for a job and realized just how spoiled I had been to have Fitness House food every day. I started to cook more out of necessity—for both financial reasons and taste. And then, just when I was starting to gain confidence in the kitchen, along came Martha Stewart, who brought the beauty of perfection to every part of our lives. Of course, with that beauty comes judgment. Am I worthy? My stuff looks like crap, but if it tastes good is it okay to serve? For my generation, her influence was perhaps the strongest, making it almost impossible for us to entertain without shame. Because we would never, ever, ever, be as good and perfect as Martha. And so I took my cooking underground. I cooked for my immediate family only, which at times was up to 30 people. And their gratitude and appreciation was all I needed.
When I met Lou Cinquino, my now ex-husband, I also met his extended family, which was a food revelation. First, they are Italian, so of course they love garlic. Second, they came from a food tradition that was so different from my own. They didn’t really give a hoot about organic, although they grew and foraged much of their own food. Sugar? Bring it on. Even breakfast was often followed by dessert. As the granddaughter of a man who wrote Natural Health, Sugar and the Criminal Mind, I was scandalized, but wasted no time jumping right in!
The Cinquinos all loved to cook because they loved to eat, and the truth is, even though they couldn’t afford to eat out, their food was better than anything you could get in a restaurant. My mother-in-law Rita Cinquino’s famous line was: “Our poor food is your gourmet food!” This was often said in an accusatory tone with an undertone of pride. But she was right.
What the Cinquinos taught me is that cookies and food stored in Cool Whip containers isn’t the end of the world (Louie Cinquino lived to 94, and as of this moment, Rita is still going at 94). My mother passed away from breast cancer at 81, but I saw up close and personal that her health issues were probably the result of emotional pain and alcohol rather than the steak she would order whenever she ate out. What I’ve mostly learned is not to judge other people. Everyone is on their own journey. And everyone is accountable and responsible for their own healing.
As I was starting to travel and making my way up the corporate ladder, I was eating out in nicer and nicer restaurants, and I learned to appreciate home cooking in a whole new way. The rise of the celebrity TV chef was great for bringing attention to food and how it’s grown, but not so great when it came to making everyday people feel confident in their own kitchens. And for many younger people whose mothers had gone out into the workforce and relied on frozen, fast, and restaurant foods, the simple art of home cooking was fading.
When my father died in a car accident in 1990, my mother pretty much stopped cooking all together. Without him to cook for, she lost her reason for cooking. I’ll never forget the day we learned he had died and everyone had gathered at my mother’s house. For some reason I had a huge bag of chicken pieces in my fridge and I brought them to her house and cooked for everyone. My oldest sister looked at me and said: “How can you cook at a time like this?” She was genuinely curious because all she was able to do was sit in shock. And my response was: “How can I not cook? People are hungry.”
It was probably the moment when I became a really passionate cook. First, because if I wanted the foods I loved, there was no one left to cook them for me. And second, cooking became my refuge, my solace—my thing to do when nothing else could be done. The world could be falling apart around me, but a good meal at least makes it bearable and gives me the strength to carry on.
So I learned to cook. But I didn’t just learn to cook, I learned to feed and nourish my family. I learned to adapt when kids became picky or gluten intolerant. And because I’m intensely curious, I didn’t just learn to cook what I was familiar with, I learned to make and explore other cultures’ and other people’s family favorites, starting with my former in-laws Italian recipes. I even cooked a recipe as far-flung as Aboriginal “damper and dip,” traditionally made with kangaroo from Australia, but substituted with America’s native meat, buffalo. Plus, with my own Pennsylvania Dutch heritage, I am lucky enough to live in a place where hunting, snout-to-tail eating, and local family butchering never went out of style.
I started my blog, Maria’s Farm Country Kitchen, for business reasons, but it quickly became personal. Back in 2009 everyone was talking about blogging. But like most things, I needed to do it myself to learn about it and understand it. I named it Farm Country Kitchen because the kitchen is where all the good stuff happens. And at the time there was quite a wide social divide between how high-end chefs (even the farm-to-table ones) were talking about food and how real people really lived and ate. And I even wanted to redeem the idea of “country,” because at the time it was typical for people to say they loved all sorts of music except for rap and country!
The beauty of blogging is that you get feedback and conversation. You also see data and make connections. Suddenly my mashed potatoes blog post became a regular hit, spiking at holidays. I’d get comments and emails about my food, and I loved it. My kids became my guinea pigs. I’d make things and write recipes down and take pictures at the dinner table and ask them if a dish was “blog-worthy.” Many times the answer was no. But if it was yes, it became a blog post.
In fact, my kids are the ones who asked me to write this cookbook. Sure, you can find a lot of these recipes online, but they are scattered all over the place and not very organized. I blog about food because cooking makes my kids happy and me happy, nourishing us and giving us strength for what we do.
People often ask me how I do what I do. (Or more typically it’s actually a statement: “I don’t know how you do it.”) I am the chairwoman and CEO of a media company that has gone through the greatest disruption of our time—the Great Digital Disruption, when digital content and advertising stripped readers and revenue from traditional print businesses during the 2008 recession. I’m also the co-chair of a nonprofit, the Rodale Institute, which conducts scientific research on organic farming and helps farmers transition to organic. I have three girls born in three different decades (’80s, ’90s, and ’00s) and more often than not, when I am home, I make dinner from scratch. I don’t cook because I have to, I cook because I want to and because it’s the most intimate, nourishing, and primal pleasure I can give to my family and myself (I do like to cook and eat alone, too).
No matter how hard things have gotten, or how much tension or disappointment there has been among family members, we still sit down and eat a home-cooked meal together and somehow things get better. I believe cooking is what makes us human. I believe food heals the heart and soul, as well as the body. I believe we ingest the energy of our food in more than just calories, but in life force and freshness, the aliveness of our food, and even the environment and intention with which the food was grown and raised.
My life has afforded me incredible experiences—travels around the world, eating the most delicious things you can imagine in restaurants and homes and at festivals. But there is still nothing better than coming home and sitting down at the table with my family and eating the food we made ourselves, often with produce grown in our garden.
As the third generation of the first family of organics, I’ve seen it all. I’ve seen fads come and go. Health and diet issues rise and fall. And trends go around and come back again. I’ve seen organic go from a subject of complete ridicule to a status symbol. I’ve seen up close and personal that just being fit or thin doesn’t protect people from cancer. I’ve seen that being a vegetarian or vegan doesn’t necessarily make someone a better, healthier, or happier person. I’ve seen that fat-free diets or sugar-free diets lead to lots of fake substitutes that are even worse than the original fat or sugar. And I’ve seen people who are technically obese live long and happy, healthy lives.
I want everyone to feel safe in their kitchens. Safe to experiment and learn. Safe to express their differences and creativity. Safe to try new things. And most important, safe to make a big damned mess and laugh about it, and serve the food we’ve made even if it’s not perfect or “blog-worthy.” I realized early on that we are all afraid of new things, or things we don’t understand, whether it’s a plant we are unfamiliar with, or a type of food we’ve never tried. I’ve seen people recoil when I say something is organic, as if organic means tofu and sprouts and things without flavor. I know it means super delicious and safe and nontoxic, made from real food, not fake. So I always say, let’s start with where you are, with the foods you love. I’ll show you that it can be even more delicious if it’s organic. That’s what I try to do—make you feel safe in the kitchen.
I always fall back on those familiar, wonderful, real organic meals that define home, family, and love. These are the recipes that have come out of my kitchen in the spirit of acceptance, love, and laughter. These are the recipes that my daughters now make and workshop into their own styles. These are the recipes that nourish our soul, while celebrating the abundance and deliciousness of nature at its best.
You can make any recipe in this book without using organic ingredients and it will be just as yummy and good. But I can tell you: It won’t be as alive and nourishing. But I’m not here to judge. I’m here to show you that anyone can cook, and anyone can make totally delicious things simply and easily from scratch.
This is not a book about counting calories, avoiding meat, eggs, or dairy, or reducing your salt, sugar, or fat intake. There is gluten in this book.
This is not a book about trying to change who you are or what you like or don’t like. This is not a book about tricking you into eating better or differently.
This is not a “healthy cooking” book in the way you may have been trained to think about a “healthy diet.” There are no sprouts. There are no soy or artificial protein products trying to mimic familiar foods. No fake cheese. No fake anything.
Yeah, I know my surname is Rodale and you might think you know what kind of food I eat. You might even judge me without knowing the truth. I’m used to it.
This is a book about real food. Real, organic food.
This is a book about food you don’t need to detox from because there’s nothing toxic in it to begin with. In fact, real organic food keeps the toxins out of nature and our environment, too.
This is a book about foods that are not fads. Well, except maybe kale. But kale is so yummy! Kids love kale when done right.
But you are a grown-up. You can be trusted to moderate your own salt, sugar, fat, meats, and indulgences based on your own health beliefs and needs.
I don’t believe in imposing my beliefs on others.
I believe in freedom. In the freedom to eat what you want, when you want it, and how you want it. I believe in the freedom to create in the kitchen, to experiment and learn. You can eat all the toxic fake stuff you want and I won’t judge you.
But I will ask you to try something new. Something fresh.
(Just one bite. You’ll like it!)
This is a book about nourishment. About family. About feeding your body, your brain, your heart, and your soul with good things. Delicious things. Things that come from nature. Things that make you feel good and healthy. Things that people have eaten for centuries, and we will keep eating into the future.
So maybe it’s a healthy diet book after all. In the original best sense—the kind of diet we can all live with. Maybe this is the kind of diet that can feed the world.
ORGANIC food means food that has been grown without toxic chemicals and inhumane methods that harm your health and the environment. Period. If you want the full definition, see “What Does Organic Really Mean?”. But if you have any doubt, look for the USDA certified organic label in your supermarket. It’s a label you can trust.
FAT feeds the brain. Seriously, we need fat to be healthy and happy and to think at maximum capacity. But fat tends to store toxins and chemicals, so it’s important to eat organic fats and real fats, not fake or chemical ones. Also, rather than trying to examine the specific scientific benefits or problems with each type of fat, think of your fats as a local resource. Before olive oil came to America, people used butter and lard. That’s okay. It’s real food.
SALT in moderation is fine. We need salt to be healthy. And while I like to use natural sea salt, I also use plain table salt with iodine in it because we need iodine for a healthy thyroid and iodine is hard to get from food alone. So think about your salt, but don’t be afraid to use it.
SUGAR is not evil. But it’s not a free ticket either. Sugar is a powerful substance that we all crave; the important thing is to manage our consumption in moderation and not overdo it. However, try to eat it from natural sources like honey or maple syrup, or use certified organic sugar.
VEGETARIAN AND VEGANS are my friends and I support them in their beliefs and practices. There are quite a few vegetarian and vegan recipes in this book. But I myself am not a vegetarian. I believe in the freedom to express our own food philosophies and in respecting others’ beliefs as well. And if you are practicing vegetarianism based on saving the planet, here is my view on climate change. Climate change is the result of putting too many toxic chemicals and carbon dioxide into the atmosphere without putting it back into the ground. Organic soil stores carbon, and organic farming can heal climate change (See the white paper Regenerative Organic Agriculture and Climate Change: A Down-to-Earth Solution to Global Warming, authored by the Rodale Institute). Chemical farming destroys the soil’s capacity to store carbon. Animals are an integral part of a healthy soil system and are required to make a healthy agricultural system work. Yes, we need to eat less meat. But what we really need is to transition more land and animal farming to organic. The most important thing you can do to stop climate change is to grow, buy, and eat organic food.
GMOS are to be avoided at all costs, because genetically modified crops are more likely to be sprayed with chemical herbicides that poison our environment and our bodies. Those chemicals also destroy the soil’s ability to absorb and store carbon.
ALCOHOL is fine in moderation, but you won’t find it in my kitchen. I haven’t had a drink since 1999, so I don’t like having alcohol in the house. I don’t mind if people enjoy it in my company, but I don’t want to cook with it and have learned to adapt accordingly, such as with my Sober Mini Fruitcakes.
LOCAL FOOD is awesome, but just because something is local doesn’t make it organic. That’s why local and organic is always the best choice.
MODERATION and DIVERSITY in our diets is essential. It’s not good to eat the exact same thing every day. And it’s not good to eat too much of any one thing. And if you aren’t used to trying lots of new things, now is a great time to start. I always said to my kids: “Try it, you’ll like it.” And if that didn’t work: “Take just one bite. What’s the worst that can happen? You can spit it out.” Of course, don’t encourage someone to try certain foods if they have serious allergies, please!
HUNGER comes in all shapes and sizes. There is real hunger. But there is also “hunger” for other things—emotional comfort, stress relief, even sexual frustration. Learn to identify what your true hunger is and feed it with what will truly satisfy that hunger, not just food. Hunger also leads to “hangry,” so if you or anyone you are around is angry or crying for no good reason, please give them a snack as soon as possible!
FARMERS grow our food. Without them, we would be in big trouble. That’s why we should help them and empower them on the path toward organic farming.
GLUTEN is a real issue. I have seen my daughter Maya go from many migraines a month to one a year just by eliminating gluten. There are many reasons we are becoming more gluten intolerant—everything from the wheat varieties that have been chosen for mass production, to the way it’s milled and stored, to the way it’s often sprayed with Roundup before harvest to make it easier for farmers to harvest. The only way to know for sure is to experiment and, again, eat organic whenever possible.
BACON is the best, especially if it’s organic.
One last note: Cooking doesn’t buy love. And it’s not an exchange for something else. I think lots of women are taught that food is a way to ask for other things, and then we get depressed when we don’t get what we really want, whatever that is, whether it’s the truth, a night out, sex, or some sort of reciprocation. Food is the language of intimacy, but it’s not a substitute for intimacy. However, the kitchen table is a great place to have a deep conversation about anything. Cooking is ultimately a gift that is given, and like all gifts, should be given without expecting anything in return—except maybe help with the dishes! Or a “thank you”—that would be nice and just good manners.
Throughout this book I mention family members on all sides and of different generations. Here is a handy guide to who is who and what their food issues are or were.
My grandfather, known as PAPA to me but as JI RODALE to the world, is considered the founding father of the organic movement in America. He believed that sugar, wheat, and fluoride were harmful. He was a Polish Jew who grew up on the Lower East Side of Manhattan. He did not cook himself, but married a great cook.
My grandmother, known as NANA, MRS. JI, or simply ANNA RODALE, was a total pistol, artist, and awesome cook when my grandfather was alive; but after he died she pretty much relied on takeout Chinese food. She could not tolerate cheese or eggs.
My father, ROBERT RODALE, actually cooked a lot for a man of his time. Although it was mostly to eat stuff my mother wouldn’t make: onion sandwiches, corn pones, cornmeal “mush,” and other things not in this book. He constantly brought people over to dinner without telling my mother in advance.
GRANDMA HARTER, or ARDATH HARTER, used to always say she came from a family of French Huguenots, but mostly she was Pennsylvania Dutch. By the time I came along, she didn’t cook much anymore but her inspiration is throughout this book. She was widowed before I was born, so I never met my grandfather, STANLEY HARTER, also Pennsylvania Dutch.
My mother, ARDIE RODALE, had five kids and many unexpected guests so she had to cook for large groups, and not always happily. She was a great cook, but like her mother-in-law, she lost interest in cooking after her husband died. Which, actually, was one of the things that forced me to learn to cook more.
The best thing my father ever said to me was that I was the worst cook in my family. HEIDI ranked first, HEATHER was second, and I was last. Notice, the boys didn’t get mentioned (although my brother DAVID who was an excellent cook had already passed away). It was a tough message to hear, but it inspired me to get better. Now we are all great cooks. And my brother ANTHONY? He had the good sense to marry a great cook, FLORENCE.
RITA CINQUINO, my former mother-in-law, gave me some of my best recipes of all. As an Italian—or rather Sicilian—there is almost nothing she would rather talk about than food. And while I didn’t agree with everything about her cooking (what daughter-in-law does?), I completely respect her approach, which often stemmed from frugality and limited access to good food.
LOUIE CINQUINO, my father-in-law, taught me how to cook with love. He was always a steady companion to my mother-in-law in the kitchen, sitting in the kitchen chair chopping, cutting, and helping out with whatever he was asked to do. He was also the master of gardening and cooking foraged food, whether it was wild mustard greens or wild cardoon, known as “gardooni” (see recipe). Both Rita and Louie showed me that moderation is truly the best approach to food, and that nothing in and of itself is evil. Louie just passed away at age 94 and was never known to turn any food down, especially dessert. His family was from Vasto, Italy, in the Abruzzi region.
LOU CINQUINO is my ex-husband. I am forever grateful to him for introducing me to his extended Italian family and raising our lovely children together. Now that we are divorced, he is learning to cook on his own.
I had MAYA RODALE when I was only 20 years old, so we kind of learned to cook together. By far my pickiest eater (the list is too long to publish here), she is now officially gluten free and can’t tolerate eggs. She is married to TONY HAILE, who is even pickier than her (and British). The fact that they both love many of the recipes in this book is testament to my stubborn perseverance and proof that my cooking must be good.
EVE CINQUINO came along when I was 37. She eats almost everything and has been known to cook on her own accord, whenever she feels like it. She is especially good at baking and will often make cookies or brownies for friends. She is also really, really good at math, which is very helpful in the kitchen; I will often call or text her if I need help dividing a recipe or figuring out kitchen math.
LUCIA CINQUINO took her time joining our family. She was born when I was 44. She is also a true gourmand. She will often smell a food before she eats it, is willing to try anything, and has been known to sing like an opera singer after a good meal. She does not like foie gras (nor do I) or raw oysters (I do), but has tried them both. We both love to eat salad with our fingers.
