I started using cast-iron cookware about four years ago, after my son came home from an overnight at a friend’s house and asked why I didn’t cook with cast iron. His friend’s mom had cooked him a delicious breakfast omelet in her cast-iron skillet, and she’d explained how cooking in cast iron was healthier than using nonstick pans.

I have to admit feeling a twinge of shame during this conversation. I’d tried a cast-iron pan once or twice years before, but the food stuck and the pan was very heavy, so I quickly gave up. My nonstick pans were light and easy to maneuver, but I had to use plastic spatulas, stack them with dish towels to protect the cooking surface, and worry about what chemicals they might release at high heat or when they got scratched. I decided to give cast iron another try…and soon I was in love! Now hardly a day goes by that I don’t use one of my favorite cast-iron pans.

I’ve found that a new, pre-seasoned cast-iron pan still needs about six uses for the little pores in the metal to fill in and make the pan shiny and truly nonstick. Once your pan is well seasoned, it’s a huge pleasure to use. You can cook at high temperatures, scrape the pan, cut food in it, and put it into the oven. When you serve in cast iron, it keeps the food warm for a long time. Whether I’m cooking a steak indoors instead of firing up the grill, making home fries and scrambled eggs for breakfast, or baking a perfect loaf of corn bread, my cast iron never disappoints. And I love how a cast-iron pan lasts for generations, getting better year after year when it’s cared for correctly. I think it’s a lot like the organic fields we farm, just getting richer and more productive over time, in contrast to most conventional farms, where the soil becomes increasingly depleted.

When my daughter moved into her first apartment last year, I sent her off with my favorite perfectly seasoned cast-iron pan. I felt that some of the love from all the meals we’d cooked and ate together was somehow traveling with her to new kitchen. I hope that we started a new tradition, and she’ll pass that same pan along to her child one day. It may not be a diamond worth millions, but the memories and the practical benefits it carries are priceless.

Bonus Recipe:

Italian Sausage with Fennel and Grapes

This recipe works wonderfully in a cast-iron pan. The pairing of sausages and grapes, which may seem unusual, has a long history in Italian cuisine and is really delicious. The roasted grapes, fennel, and onion form a perfectly sweet backdrop for the spicy sausage — choose whatever type of sausage you like: hot or sweet Italian, chicken and apple, or andouille, for example. This hearty country-style dish is very easy to prepare, and it’s a great autumn or winter dinner when partnered with some hot crusty bread and a glass of full-bodied red wine.

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It’s hard for me not to get despondent as I learn more and more about the plight of the world’s oceans. In many ways we’ve made our oceans garbage dumps, polluting them with trash and toxic chemicals. Fortunately, there’s so much we can do as consumers to help reverse this trend. Our everyday food choices are incredibly powerful; we just need to get educated and commit ourselves to making a difference.

If you have a chance to visit the Monterey Bay Aquarium, you’ll surely be inspired to protect our oceans. The aquarium publishes the authoritative Seafood Watch guides that tell you which seafood choices are the most sustainable, taking into account the health of fish populations and the impacts of fishing methods, including bycatch (species that are caught and killed accidentally), habitat damage (some fishing methods, like bottom trawling, destroy important ocean ecosystems), and aquaculture operations (some fish farms generate lots of pollution, use antibiotics and other chemicals, and use more wild fish than they produce).

In the Fish and Shellfish chapter of my new cookbook, The Earthbound Cook, I tell the story about the first time my daughter, Marea, discovered the wonders of the ocean. She was 13 months old and her eyes were filled with the joy of a young child. As I watched her playing on the beach, I felt the strong pull to preserve this natural beauty. We pointed to the ocean and told her that was the fishes’ real home, creatures she had seen only in books or aquariums. For days, she kept saying, “Shhhhh, shhhh” and we soon realized that she wasn’t telling us to be quiet; she was saying “fish” and just couldn’t quite manage the “f” sound. After “mama” and “dada,” “fish” was her first word!

Many years later, that memory still reminds me of just how fragile our oceans are and how important it is to protect them for future generations. Watching a child dance on that boundary of land and water is a perfect image of the direct link between the health of our oceans and the health of all life on our planet.

The oceans supply more than 50 percent of the Earth’s oxygen — that’s more than 2½ times the amount produced by the rain forests. And like the rain forests, what we know about our oceans is dwarfed by what we’ve yet to discover. If our oceans continue to deteriorate, food sources, medicinal compounds, and vital knowledge about our planet are just a few of the things we could lose before we ever discover them.

Happily, one of the best ways to protect our oceans is by choosing environmentally responsible seafood. Like the organic movement, the sustainable seafood movement is profoundly influenced by consumer demand. Once we start asking for sustainable seafood and stop purchasing those foods that deplete species or damage our oceans, we’re well on our way to reforming an entire industry and ensuring that our children and their children will inherit healthy oceans and bountiful sea life.

Bonus Recipe:

Coconut Crusted Salmon

Currently, Seafood Watch lists the following salmon as your best choices: wild-caught Alaska Coho, Chum, Keta, King, Pink, Red, Silver, Sockeye, and Sake; or US-farmed Coho and Silver salmon from self-contained tank systems.

This is the kind of crusted fish dish that’s seen on menus at high-end restaurants, yet this recipe is surprisingly easy. It’s quick enough to whip up any time you crave a special treat — or want to impress dinner guests. The Asian-inspired crisp topping of coconut and Japanese tempura-style bread crumbs contrasts beautifully with the flaky, nutrition-rich salmon. This is the perfect time to use your favorite cast-iron skillet, which will go seamlessly from stovetop to oven. A light drizzle of Coconut Chile Sauce makes a beautiful presentation and tastes sublime.

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I worry a lot about global warming — ice caps melting; temperatures rising; more frequent and severe droughts, floods, and storms; more pests; and the increased spread of infectious diseases. The scary list goes on, and it often feels like we as individuals are helpless to make a dent in this environmental crisis. But since the majority of these problems are the result of the lifestyles we humans have chosen, lifestyle changes can also make a huge positive impact.

In doing research for my new cookbook, The Earthbound Cook , I learned that often the most effective ways to reduce our individual carbon footprint is to eat lower on the food chain. In the chart below (from the NRDC’s website), you’ll see the carbon dioxide equivalent of global warming pollution released by the production of different foods (equivalents are useful to compare different greenhouse gases; for example, cattle release huge amounts of methane, which is 21 times more potent than carbon dioxide). Just choosing the chicken instead of the steak at a restaurant has a notable impact — and if you choose to eat vegetarian, especially foods that use little or no cheese, your footprint is even lighter.

Eating produce-based food is often more economical and healthier. Vegetarian proteins like beans and nuts have lots of fiber and no cholesterol. My family loves meat, but I’ve found that everyone is very satisfied with smaller servings if I make lots of delicious vegetable side dishes to fill us up and round out the meal. Eating this way doesn’t have to be a sacrifice at all; it’s healthy and delicious, and it can broaden your horizons.

Bonus Recipe:

Buckwheat Pasta with Tofu and Sesame Vegetables

My new book has a whole chapter devoted to vegetarian entrées, plus many other meat-free dishes throughout; here’s one I love that features buckwheat noodles, tofu for protein, and tons of healthy fresh veggies.

The key to this recipe lies in having everything prepped and ready to go before you start cooking. First the tofu is sautéed to give it a golden crust; then while the pasta is cooking, the vegetables are quickly stir-fried. The result is an easy vegetarian dish loaded with tasty vegetables, beautiful colors, and varying textures. One thing that we especially appreciate about this dish is that it’s great hot, at room temperature, or cold right out of the fridge. This is a perfect budget-friendly recipe that’s great to remember when you need to make a dish for a potluck or a party.

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It’s Sunday night, and as I reflect upon a weekend of great meals, I realize that what made them extra special was the food we harvested from our little garden. On Saturday I dug out some baby red and ruby crescent potatoes (always my favorite harvest of the year) and roasted them with olive oil, salt, and pepper. Yum! They made our simple barbeque chicken dinner a treat. This morning for breakfast we spread some homemade raspberry jam on some fresh whole grain bread — we made enough jam a couple of weeks ago to bring sweetness and sunshine into our kitchen until our berry patch peaks again next summer. For tonight’s dinner, I brought in some sunburst squash and sautéed them with garlic and an heirloom tomato, and finished it with a big handful of fresh-picked chopped Italian parsley. The chives for our baked potatoes were snipped fresh from our garden, too.

Growing up in New York City, I was completely disconnected from where my food came from. When I was hungry, I didn’t think “What should I harvest? What should I cook?” but “Should I get takeout from the deli, order Chinese, or grab a slice of Ray’s pizza?” Today I feel so much more grounded, with my feet on the Earth and my hands in the soil. I’m so glad my kids have grown up gardening, picking out what they wanted to grow from a seed catalog, and then eating it with enthusiasm because they’d planted it, cared for it, cleared the weeds, and harvested it themselves.

Now that my daughter’s in college, the garden draws her home for more frequent visits; she craves home’s fresh food and the fulfillment of our harvests. My 17-year-old football-player son is no longer the little toddler who needs supervision while he digs with his little shovel; these days he’s the one I rely on to clear the garden of the most stubborn overgrown weeds, carry the 40-pound bags of organic fertilizer, and fork it into the soil to prepare the beds. He makes sure we always plant pickling cucumbers and dill, and when they are ready, he makes pickles for our family — and for my parents, who love them more than any other food.

The joys of our home garden are many and unique, which is why I encourage everyone to give gardening a try, even if your “garden” is just a pot on a window ledge with some perennial herbs. Just a few snips of something you grew yourself adds a special flavor to your food and inspires more home cooking.

Bonus Recipe:

Three-Color Potato Salad

This recipe is one of my favorites, perfect for taking advantage of produce that peaks in the late summer. It’s a glorious combination of potatoes, green beans, tomatoes, olives, capers, and parsley. It makes a great lunch with a green salad, a delicious side for a sandwich, and an ideal dish for a picnic or pot luck.

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I’ve been an organic farmer for more than 26 years, and I’m so gratified that growing food without synthetic chemicals is no longer regarded as a crazy occupation. Now, many people believe that choosing organic food over conventional protects their personal health as well as the environment. They’re also beginning to understand that the two are intertwined — we can’t be truly healthy if our air, water, and soil are polluted with toxic chemicals.

As parents, we try to protect our kids from the many dangers in the world; we get them the best car seats, make them wear helmets when riding their bikes, and make sure their play dates are with families we trust. All these actions have immediate results. Choosing organic food, by contrast, is more of a long-term investment. It just makes sense that eating food grown without the use of toxic chemicals meant to kill insects, weeds, and diseases has to be healthier for our bodies.

We’ve long trusted our gut instincts on this, but now scientific research supports the idea. In May, the President’s Cancer Panel released a report, “Reducing Environmental Cancer Risk,” urging consumers to eat food grown without chemical pesticides and fertilizers, antibiotics, and growth hormones. Just a week later, another study in the journal Pediatrics linked consumption of foods with pesticide residues to a higher incidence of ADHD in American children. Other studies have concluded that organic produce is often more nutritious than conventional, with more vitamins and antioxidants in every bite of many items.

Choosing organic helps protect our planet for our children and future generations. It keeps these toxic agricultural chemicals out of our rivers and oceans, soil and air. Organic farms recycle organic materials into the soil instead of relying on synthetic petroleum-based chemicals. And organic soil actually sequesters carbon and helps mitigate global warming. Organic farming is also safer for farm workers and neighboring homes and schools. Just Earthbound Farm alone, working with our 150 farmers on 35,000 acres, avoids the use of more than 11 million pounds of synthetic chemicals every year.

Sometimes it’s hard to find or afford all organic food. When you’re trying to protect your family from pesticide residues — especially children whose nervous systems are still developing and who often eat more produce per pound of body weight than adults — the Environmental Working Group’s Shopper’s Guide can help. EWG ranks commonly consumed fruits and veggies by how many pesticide residues they contain when grown conventionally. If you can’t buy everything organic, you can cut your pesticide exposure from fresh produce up to 90% by choosing organic options from their list.

Bonus Recipe:

Heirloom Lettuce Salad with Strawberries, Walnuts, Goat Cheese and Walnut Balsamic Vinaigrette

This simple and delicious salad features strawberries — those sweet-tart and succulent joys of spring and summer — which consistently test high in pesticide residues when they’re conventionally grown. Most conventional strawberry producers rely on methyl bromide to fumigate their fields; it’s extremely toxic to humans and wildlife, and it depletes the ozone layer in a big way. While I try to be flexible about insisting on organic, I always avoid buying conventional strawberries.

Whole heirloom lettuce leaves make a beautiful and flavorful base for the delightful blending of sweet strawberries, creamy goat cheese, and toasted walnuts — but spring mix or butter lettuce also work well. The flavors are melded perfectly by a quick-to-make balsamic vinaigrette that features toasted walnut oil.

Continue on to Heirloom Lettuce Salad with Strawberries, Walnuts, Goat Cheese and Walnut Balsamic Vinaigrette recipe.