Annemarie Ahearn

Annemarie Ahearn founded Salt Water Farm in 2009, a cooking school for home cooks on Maine’s Penobscot Bay. She began her studies at Colorado College, during which time her interest in food developed while living in Aix-en-Provence, where she studied Provincial cuisine and visited the open-air markets. Later, she apprenticed in the kitchen at Le Jardin Notre Dame in Paris. While in New York, Annemarie worked in the editorial department at Saveur Magazine and wrote a biweekly food column for The L Magazine, entitled the “Downtown Chef.” After attending the Institute of Culinary Education with a degree in both Culinary Arts and Culinary Management she worked for Dan Barber at Blue Hill Restaurant, as personal assistant to Tom Colicchio of Craft Restaurants, and as a personal chef in New York. She also worked at the Slow Food Headquarters and before opening Salt Water Farm, she taught classes at Cook and Taste, a small, recreational cooking school in Barcelona. Ahearn was also named “40 Big Food Thinkers 40 and Under” in Food & Wine, “changing the way America eats.”

In 2013, Ahearn opened Salt Water Farm Cafe & Market in Rockport Harbor, Maine, offering locally sourced fare for breakfast, lunch, and dinner, and garnered acclaim in the Wall Street Journal, the New York Times, and the Boston Globe as well as Bon Appetit, Downeast Magazine, and Maine Magazine. Ahearn is also a contributing writer for Downeast Magazine, sharing recipes from her school and regularly teaching high school students in her community cooking skills through a program she calls “Back to Basics.”

"Modern Country Cooking is a true expression of what it means to be a confident country cook. Annemarie’s portraits of each month in Maine and her inspired seasonal recipes make me miss the great Northern state I hold dear." —Joshua McFadden, executive chef at Ava Gene’s and author of Six Seasons

"Annemarie is your favorite teacher and classically trained chef rolled into one. Modern Country Cooking is an inviting culinary bible for anyone and everyone who craves an expertly prepared seasonal meal." —Julia Sherman, author of Salad for President

"Annemarie has distilled so much of what I love about Salt Water Farm in each page, recipe, and story in this book. Her cooking is soulful, honest, insanely delicious, and if I could, I’d move to Maine to be closer to it. Meanwhile, I’ve got this book." —Alison Roman, author of Dining In and Nothing Fancy

"Annemarie Ahern, who runs a culinary school in Maine, takes a seasonal approach to cooking in this accessible volume. Ahern’s month-by-month program includes a handful of recipes using ingredients that are at their peak, resulting in a mix of familiar comfort food classics. . . . [Readers] will appreciate the sound advice on kitchen basics, such as how to properly hold and use a knife, the art of seasoning to taste, methods for thickening sauces, and the difference between sweating and sautéing. Ahern’s collection succeeds in its presentation of hearty, simple country cooking and entertaining." —Publishers Weekly

"Annemarie Ahearn’s Modern Country Cooking teaches the kitchen skills you’d learn at her Maine workshops, like improvising when you’re short an ingredient and thinking seasonally. Around now, she’s drizzling crispy roasted porchetta with garden-grown salsa verde, and sliding a spoonful of crabmeat onto asparagus soup." —Martha Stewart Living, May 2020