Marie Rama

Marie Rama was born into a large Italian family of great cooks. Her maternal grandparents built and operated the only slaughtering house in Westchester County, New York, and raised beef, chickens, pork, lamb and fresh vegetables on a 25 acre farm in Yorktown Heights. Rama learned to make homemade green spinach noodles, an Italian fruit cake Pompepado, jars of Concord grape jam, Easter breads, Bolognese sauce, and other very individual family dishes while working besides her beloved grandmother and aunts in their large and welcoming country kitchen. Food wasn't an afterthought; it was a conduit for bringing the family together and for celebrating all that was good for a generation of poor immigrants who found a home in America.

Marie is the co-author of the best selling cookbooks Cooking Basics for Dummies and Grilling for Dummies, and is very excited about her latest cookbook, Bacon Nation, co-authored with Peter Kaminsky.

She is a recipient of the Westchester Volunteer Center's 2013 Spirit Award for Education and Literacy and a Board Member of Yonkers Partners in Eduction, a non-profit who's mission is to increase post-secondary opportunity for Yonkers public school students. She lives in Yonkers, New York with her husband Mark, a writer.