About the Author

I love beets -- especially ones so fresh they come into your kitchen still in possession of their green headdresses. These rosy golden beets had been on a table at the Saturday farmer's market in my town just an hour or so before they got this bath in my sink.

And that's where you'll often find me on a summer Saturday - at the farmer's market, trolling for something to eat. If there's corn that morning, for example, you can bet we're having a Saturday supper of corn on the cob and a tomato salad. But I won't just stop at a couple of ears of corn at the farm stand, always buying a few more than I need that day to put up in the freezer. Come February, their tomato accompaniment long out of season, those corn kernels often become a side to a winter meatloaf, or the base of a salad to have with some fajitas.

It stems from a lifetime of growing at least part of my own food, even if it was just a couple of tomato plants on an apartment stoop after college graduation. Today, my garden spans about 640 square feet -not counting the blueberries in the front yard and the herbs squeezed in along the alley - and feeds two of us for the summer and much of the winter.

It's a skill I teach the preteens in my Girl Scout troop, who learned through their own garden last summer the joys of fresh tomatoes and how to make spaghetti sauce from the overabundance of September.

And while growing, preserving, cooking and eating food - and indoctrinating 11-year-olds to do the same - consumes much of my hobby time, it also takes up part of my professional life as well. I write about food in the summer, and in the fall, winter and spring, teach journalism at Penn State University. And yes, many of my students take a stab at writing at least one food story. It's an evil plot to take over...well, maybe just the kitchen.

Photo by Cristina Garcia.