Books and Projects

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Barbarians at the Plate: Taming and Feeding the Modern American Family (Perigee, 2005)

Is the family meal a thing of the past? Parents and children interviewed for this book say “no way!” In fact, they’re sitting around the table  nightly, and having tasty, wholesome meals together. You can, too. This “reported” cookbook tells you how.  

Working parents from around the country generously gave their ideas, collected in these pages, on the “hows” of producing family meals:

  • Tips on shopping
  • Strategies for dealing with picky eaters
  • Basic table manners
  • Pantry staples for seat-of-the-pants suppers
  • More than 100 family-friendly recipes

 As for the “whys” of family meals, parents had lots reasons:

  • Communication: Parents learn about their kids, kids learn about their parents. Who didn’t invite who to a birthday party? Just what was that story about Uncle Norbert and the tightrope-walker? Hear about it at the family table!
  • Skills for life: Learning to sit, to take turns, to listen, to tell a story…these skills are of use from the classroom to the boardroom, and they are first learned — you guessed it — at the family table.
  • Better nutrition:  Home-made can be way healthier than most of the stuff you get at the drive-thru lane or the prepared-food section of the supermarket. Case in point: a simple from-scratch mac and cheese takes the same time as the boxed kind and has one-third of the fat and twice the protein!

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River Run Cookbook: Southern Comfort from Vermont (HarperCollins. 2001)

Jimmy and Maya Kennedyand I teamed up to write this cookbook, about the tiny, popular eatery in Plainfield, VT. It’s full of Southern specialties like fried catfish and grits from Jimmy’s native Mississippi, with cool, colorful illustrations by Maya. It’s a scrap-book of life in a small town;  there are photos of the regulars, a page torn from the Town Constable’s log, and ruminations from the family of Bill the Barber, who once owned the River Run building. When I’m entertaining, I turn to this book a lot: for the gumbo, the chocolate-filled cream puffs, the crab cakes, the pulled pork, the jambalaya, Maya’s slaw and Jimmy’s amazing corn bread. 

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Fresh From Vermont (Vermont Life magazine, 1992)

David Miles, a chef and instructor at the New England Culinary Institute in Montpelier, VT, supplied the recipes for this seasonal cookbook; I wrote the text. Here you’ll find updated takes on New England standards like cod cakes and brown bread, as well as distincly contemporary dishes like shredded duck and noodle salad and grilled swordfish with goat cheese. Read about how maple syrup is made, about Vermont’s famous “fifth season” (mud season) and about the “Superbowl of Game Suppers.”

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In addition to writing or co-authoring the books, Al Roker — of “Today” show fame, tapped me to develop recipes for his two cookbooks:

  •  Al Roker’s Big Bad Book of Barbecue (Scribner, 2002) and

  • Al Roker’s Hassle-Free Holiday Cookbook (Scribner, 2003) 

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And now for something completely different.

A proud — but unusual– moment in my career occurred in late 2001, when I worked with a group of neighbors to publish ”The Men of Maple Corner Calendar 2002″ (www.maplecorner.net)  featuring the scantily clad (but extremely intelligent!) men of our  community. This project was a fund-raiser for our beloved, 1850s-era community center, and garnered $500,000, and world-wide fame.  Note: The calendar models retired in 2003.