About Nina
“A cross between Alice Waters and Martha Stewart,” (Washington Post), Nina Planck is the author of the groundbreaking Real Food: What to Eat and Why. Her vigorous defense of traditional foods liberated eaters who’d had enough of low-fat and imitation foods.
In Real Food for Mother and Baby, Nina takes up traditional diets for mother, father, and child. In her typically direct and reassuring style, she dismantles common misconceptions and fears about prenatal and weaning foods.
Nina’s cookbooks, the digital Farmers’ Market Cookbook (also available in a metric UK edition), and the gorgeous hardcover The Real Food Cookbook, offer delicious and simple recipes for the home cook.
Nina founded the first producer-only farmers' markets in London, England in 1999. Local, seasonal produce, fine cheeses, sustainable meats, wild seafood and more. www.LFM.org.uk
Nina is married to cheesemonger Robert "Robbie" Kaufelt, the pioneering cheese monger and musician, who received the “Prud'homme from la Guilde Internationale des Fromagers" in 2017. They live in Greenwich Village and Stockton, New Jersey, with their three children: Julian, Rose, and Jacob.
Praise and Press
“Nina Planck, an American farmer’s daughter who opened several farmers’ markets in London and, for a contentious few months, ran the Union Square Greenmarket in Manhattan, spreads the gospel of real food in her latest cookbook, The Real Food Cookbook: Traditional Dishes for Modern Cooks. The idea is simple. Whether it’s animal or vegetable, high-fat or low-fat, if it comes from a farm run on traditional lines, eat it.”
— The New York Times Book Review read the article →“Planck promotes her ‘good and simple’ philosophy of eating (Real Food: What to Eat and Why) in a collection of 150 straightforward, trend-bucking recipes. In this green-market driven cookbook, the Virginia farm girl and creator of London’s first farmers market shows home cooks how to bring authentic, traditional dishes to the table… Planck reminds cooks that traditional methods for producing meals from authentic foodstuffs are, in fact, a truly modern culinary approach.”
— Publishers’ Weekly read the article →“I found further solace in Nina Planck’s Real Food for Mother and Baby: ‘Your baby can eat unrefined sea salt to taste.” read the article →
— Vogue read the article →“We met Nina a little over ten years ago, when she was heading up the Greenmarket Farmers Markets in New York City. Her husband Rob once told us that essentially, Nina is a food scientist, and we agree! Her knowledge about the many facets of food is vast and we have learned so much from her in the intervening years.”
— Handpicked Nation read the article →
“Science is finally catching up to what our grandmothers knew long ago: that traditional foods, and even fats, are actually good for you—and a whole lot healthier than the creations of food technology. Drawing on the latest research and oldest folk wisdom, Real Food offers a persuasive and invigorating defense of eggs, butter, meat, and even lard (!), as well as a powerful critique of a food industry that aims to replace these standbys with its highly processed, and sometimes deadly, simulacra. Nina Planck has written a valuable and eye-opening book.”
— Michael Pollan“[Planck’s] capacity for humor and self-deprecation makes for good company, and her intelligence and skepticism inspire confidence.”
— Holly Brubach, The New York Times read the article →“A cross between Alice Waters and Martha Stewart.”
— Jonathan Yardley, The Washington Post read the article →“Who understands real food better than farmers themselves? Growing up on he parents’ Virginia farm, Nina has lived the healthy benefits. How lucky then—ten years later—that Real Food continues to gain momentum.”
— Forrest Pritchard, organic farmer and New York Times bestselling author of Gaining Ground“Nina Planck’s journey — from rebellious farm girl to suave intellectual vegetarian to protective meat-eating mom — affirms everything that is sacred and right about food. If I were in a quandary about what kind of food to buy, I would read Real Food and quit wondering.”
— Joel Salatin, author of Folks, This Ain’t Normal: A Farmer’s Advice for Happier Hens, Healthier People, and a Better World and other books
“The best damn food book I know, and I get around. The bone stock chapter is the best treatment the subject ever enjoyed. Thrilling.”
— Steve Jenkins, author of The Cheese Primer
“The antidote to the faddists, alarmists, and kooks who all too often dominate American food discourse.”
— David Kamp, author of The United States of Arugula“Nina Planck knows from real food.”
— CleanPlates.com“The Frances Moore Lappe of her generation.”
— Milkweed“Eating is our most fundamental and sensual act. It never did make sense to me that eating what’s good for you should mean depriving yourself of foods you desire. Now Nina Planck explains exactly why we are drawn to foods that delight our senses and keep us healthy.”
— Bill Niman, founder of Niman Ranch“Planck has written an important book, and her timing may be perfect. With any luck, Real Food will resonate with Americans (starved for so long on low-fat diets) and bring Weston Price to a much larger audience than he could ever have imagined.”
— LA Times Book Review read the article →