Cathy Barrow

Location: Frederick, Maryland

Education: The George Washington University, Carnegie Mellon University, Mount Holyoke College

Expertise: Baking, Preserving

Cathy is an award-winning cookbook author, traveler, cook, and gardener.
In addition to Serious Eats, her work has appeared in The New York Times, The Washington Post, and Food52.
She is the author of four cookbooks: the IACP-award-winning Mrs. Wheelbarrow’s Practical Pantry (2014), James Beard-nominated Pie Squared (2018), When Pies Fly (2019), and Bagels, Schmears, and a Nice Piece of Fish (2022).

Experience

Cathy Barrow is an award-winning cookbook author, knitter, traveler, cook, teacher, and gardener. She started her food writing career with the blog Mrs. Wheelbarrow's Kitchen. Her work has been published in The New York Times, The Washington Post, Serious Eats, Food52, and several other food publications, her books include Mrs. Wheelbarrow’s Practical Pantry (2014), Pie Squared (2018), When Pies Fly (2019), and Bagels, Schmears, and a Nice Piece of Fish (2022). Cathy believes in the power of home cooking and the stories that connect us to food, culture, home, friends, and family.

She has been a marketing director, a retailer, a landscape designer, and a food writer. In addition to her four single-subject cookbooks, she has penned articles about chefs, trends, and recipes for newspapers, magazines, and online sites. She holds a graduate degree in landscape design from The George Washington University. As she spends more time on this planet, she's become increasingly interested in the intersection of growing food and cooking it, and she's generally increasing delicious plant-based eating.

Cathy's first book, Mrs. Wheelbarrow's Practical Pantry, took home a 2015 IACP award for Best Single Subject Cookbook. Pie Squared was a 2019 James Beard Foundation Award nominee.

What is your desert island food?

If I had only one food on a desert island, it's a toss-up between chocolate chip cookies and french fries. I'm not worried about healthy eating if I'm on a desert island.

What's your favorite condiment?

Homemade mayonnaise makes everything better.

About Serious Eats

Serious Eats, a Dotdash brand, is an award-winning food and drink website visited by over 7 million hungry readers every month. Our audience comes to us for rigorously tested recipes, science-driven cooking techniques, robust equipment reviews, and stories that offer cultural and historical context to the foods we love to eat.

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