My Story
My Story
Hi, I’m Ronna (“rah-na”).
I am the founder and chef of Purple Kale Kitchenworks, a small, but mighty cooking school near the Brooklyn waterfront. I am also author of The Nimble Cook. I have been cooking and writing about food for thirty years.
As a young cook, I worked summers abroad in restaurants and pastry shops, in France, Greece, Spain, and Sicily. My recipes and writings had been featured in publications, such as The New York Times, Bon Appetit, Saveur, the Washington Post, The Art of Eating, Martha Stewart, and more. Before starting my own cooking school, I mentored cooks from the helms of some beloved, greenmarket-driven New York City restaurants.
And then I had kids.
Turns out, my professional cooking skills were no match for the ceaseless demands of new parenthood, and I failed miserably as a home cook: I inevitably under-salted pasta, if I didn’t overcook it. I burned plenty of vegetables left steaming in a long-forgotten pot. I was tired and distracted. ALL. THE. TIME.
My reckoning was clear and humbling, but it at least pushed me in new directions. I learned to adapt familiar restaurant practices to the home, and as I did this, I helped friends become more efficient, organized, less wasteful and more confident in their kitchens. In the process, I discovered I loved to teach. In 2010, I decided to step away from restaurant work to focus my energies on codifying and fine tuning Purple Kale Kitchenworks’ curriculum. My “nimble” way of cooking everyday became the foundation of all all my classes, and eventually the content for my first cookbook.
These days, you’ll find me teaching at my studio or to students on-line, testing dishes for new catering menus, brushing up on food policy, or browsing seed catalogues. I’m never far from my salvaged Garland stove, a well-stained coffee mug, or my faithful sharpening steel.
Want to collaborate? Ask about a class? Say hello?
Reach out anytime: ronna@purplekale.com