Purple Kale Kitchenworks

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 the 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 have 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 at the helm of some beloved, greenmarket-driven New York City restaurants. And then I had kids.I Learned More Cooking for My Daughter Than I Ever Did as a Chef, guest contributor, Food52My 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 every day became the foundation of all my classes, and eventually the content for my first cookbook. These days, you’ll find me teaching at my studio or to students online, 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.