You've been involved in the food world in so many different capacities…cooking, nutrition, editing, farming. Is there one area that shapes the most how you look at the world of food now?

“After working in every aspect of food—from being a hospital dietitian to running diabetes programs, working in restaurants, working as a sommelier at a Relais & Châteaux inn in North Carolina, and now farming—I can say farming has been the hardest and most rewarding part. Because it pulls together this incredible community, and I’m very much an extrovert by nature.

“And, it's also the ultimate puzzle, because everybody eats and has opinions about where food comes from and what it should look and taste like, but not everyone values the work that goes into producing it. At the end of the day, it’s about what we crave. At Food & Wine and even at Eating Well, the recipes that do best are always creamy chicken…creamy chicken soups, chicken pasta, pasta carbonara. It isn’t vegetables, even though we know what we SHOULD be eating more of. We're wired to want hearty foods that sustain and comfort us.

“So farming has been the largest learning curve, but if I didn't have the nutrition knowledge, the culinary knowledge, the recipe development and media experience, I wouldn’t know what to do with all of these vegetables. It wouldn't shape the farm as much as it has. That's the nature of who I am…I'm never going to be the best at one thing because I really enjoy doing all the things.”

You've helped develop thousands of recipes over the years. What separates one that people actually decide to cook again and again, versus something they try once and forget?

“More than anything, people want something attainable. When I write or review recipes, I first make sure there are all the key elements to make someone successful…the right pan, what heat it should be on, and visual indicators. A visual indicator is when it says, ‘Heat oil in a pan until shimmering, about one minute,’ or ‘Cook onions, stirring occasionally, until lightly golden brown, one to two minutes.’

“I see many recipes that just give you the times, but time isn't reliable. Everyone's stove is different…gas, electric, induction. Some people cook with All-Clads, some with their mother's pots from 1975. Without visual indicators and the right tools, people won't come back to a recipe.

“Ingredients need to be things people know. They're not too expensive. They contain ingredients you can get at one store. When instructions go past five steps into six, seven, eight, I'm like, ‘Oh, that seems like a lot.’ When I was younger coming out of culinary school, I wanted to prove something. Now I have nine minutes to get dinner on the table.

“And the last thing: successful recipes use the fewest pots, pans, and bowls possible. If you can make your salad dressing in the bottom of the bowl, then add ingredients and toss all together, you’ve saved a bowl or measuring cup. A good recipe developer should always think, how do I make the fewest dishes for the person cooking this meal?”

What does a normal day look like for you, if there is such a thing? Where does your day usually begin, and when do you feel most in your element?

“I'm up pretty early doing house chores, but I’m also packing eggs and then getting kids off to school. A few days a week, I walk with mom friends at Shelburne Farms, Beaver Creek, or take the dog out to Shelburne Bay Park. Getting outside and talking to peers is the ultimate way to start a grounded day, because the rest of my day is behind a computer.

“Right now, we have to collect eggs multiple times a day because they're freezing. And make sure all the animals have water, because that’s freezing. I'm often doing two things at once…if I'm on a call and not a Zoom, I'll fold laundry. Three mornings a week, we check in with our farmer over coffee to talk about what's going on.

“(My husband) Kieran and I split kid chores. If one person does morning stuff with the kids, the other exercises. In the evening, the other person can work a little later. We delegate as well as we can. We've become okay—more me than Kieran—with slight imperfection. I had to let go of a lot of that.

“The best thing about being a parent is that it’s made me a better version of myself, and helped me realize we're all just doing our best. I don't want to teach my kids that perfection is the only way, because I grew up with, ‘There's a right way and a wrong way,’ and I've learned there are many ways.”

Bonus: How do you think about food differently now than you did 20 years ago?

“When I was getting started, whether because I was young and naive or felt like I had something to prove, I made things more complicated than they needed to be. I was always trying to make recipes the best, the fanciest, the most beautiful. Now I find that people just want a good meal, and a truly good meal is not complicated. It stems from better ingredients.

“I have a friend who's a CBS Saturday morning news producer. She was flying into Burlington to do a segment on luging in Lake Placid, and she came by the farm. My 21-year-old had asked for chicken Parmesan that night, and my friend asked what the ingredients were. It was chicken from the farm, eggs from the farm, my mom's tomato sauce that she cans in summer, Maplebrook mozzarella, Cabot shredded mozz, and pasta on the side with Ploughgate butter. I said, ‘I would love to tell you this isn't normal, but this is normal here in Vermont.’ It was a very simple meal. And she said it was the best chicken parm she'd ever had.

“The energy I used to put into making recipes spectacular was all concentrated at the end…meaning, what can I add to make this recipe better? Now I've learned the longevity is raising a chick for eight weeks, chicken processing days, all of that. The effort has spread out, but the simplicity of good ingredients makes a much bigger difference than how complex something is. We’re so lucky in Vermont that way…we have the best ingredients, and people who want to grow them.”