My family’s riches weren’t measured in dollars but in the love that we felt and, in many ways, in the healthy foods that we ate. For the most part, our food was free of artificial flavors, preservatives, chemicals, and pesticides. My family wasn’t on a deliberate organic crusade. We simply respected the old traditional ways of growing, gathering, and preparing foods in the healthiest and cleanest manner possible. This philosophy of respecting and revering food goes back generations in my family—on both sides. I was blessed to have Jewish and Italian grandparents who loved to garden and cook. As a little girl growing up in a rural town near Pittsburgh, I remember helping my parents and grandparents tend their small backyard gardens. They taught me about living heirlooms—treasured seeds brought from the Old Country that they respectfully planted in American soil. They raised their own chickens, and my uncle Jack owned a slaughterhouse where naturally grazed cattle were processed and aged properly.
