How it works
- You pay once.Card, Apple Pay, Google Pay or PayPal. No account, no subscription.
- The book opens.A download link comes up straight away, and lands in your email within a minute.
- It stays in your email.Open it on your phone, tablet or computer, or print the pages you’re cooking. Nothing ships.
The math
A week of dinners for four, two ways
The way most of us eat now
- 2 takeout nights$110
- 2 frozen or boxed dinners$44
- 3 “quick” suppers that start from meat$60
My mother’s way
- One shopping trip on Saturday$50.70
- Oil and seasonings from the cupboard$5.85
- 7 dinners, cooked from the list~$2 a plate
You keep about
$157 a week
That’s over $600 a month, and about $5,000 a year if just two takeout nights a week become two pots. The book costs $37, once.
The “my mother’s way” week is the real costed week on page 20 of the book. The other column is a typical estimate at October 2026 prices. Your prices will differ.
What you were told, and what my mother did instead
“Dinner has to start with meat.”
Beans, greens, bread and eggs carried our whole week. Parts 2–5
“Hard bread goes in the garbage.”
Fresh, hard, soaked or crumbs: nine dishes, none of it thrown out. p. 84
“Good sauce comes in a jar.”
One can of tomatoes, garlic and oil, done in about 25 minutes. p. 226
“Leftovers are the end of a meal.”
They’re the start of the next one. p. 279
“Cooking cheap means eating badly.”
28 dinners at about $2 a plate, and we ate well. p. 20
Real pages from the book
Look inside
What’s inside
| # | Part | Page |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | The lean week. One shopping trip, a week of dinners | 17 |
| 2 | The winter pots. Beans, lentils, chickpeas | 52 |
| 3 | Bread at every age. Fresh, hard, soaked, crumbs | 84 |
| 4 | Greens, wild and bought. Escarole, broccoli rabe, chicory | 109 |
| 5 | Eggs for supper. Frittatas, eggs in sauce | 141 |
| 6 | Pasta from the cupboard. Pasta with what’s in the house | 167 |
| 7 | Fridays and Lent. Meatless dinners and cheap fish | 197 |
| 8 | The two sauces. The quick sauce and the Sunday sauce | 226 |
| 9 | When there was meat. A little meat to feed many | 247 |
| 10 | What it became tomorrow. Leftovers, rinds, bones | 279 |
| 11 | The August jars. Tomatoes and vegetables for winter | 309 |
| 12 | The feast days. Christmas Eve, Easter, St Joseph | 340 |
A few things you’ll find
- Sticky Calabrian pan potatoes from three ingredientsp. 26
- Pasta e fagioli, the pot that carried the lay-off wintersp. 55
- Fried breadcrumbs, “the poor man’s cheese”p. 97
- Meatballs with no meat in them at allp. 101
- The Sunday sauce, with neck bones and sausagep. 232
- The step that stops meatballs coming out hardp. 250
- Broth from the bones and trimmings you throw awayp. 270
- Whole tomatoes in jars, by the tested methodp. 314
Plus a printable week planner, a cupboard list, measures and temperatures, an index by ingredient, and an index of the cheapest dishes.
Get Poco, ma Buono
Poco, ma Buono
- 110 dishes in 12 parts, each with exact amounts, times and the cost of the pot
- One shopping list, seven dinners: a full costed week
- My mother’s account-book note beside nearly every dish
- Printable week planner and cupboard list
- Two indexes: by ingredient, and the cheapest dishes
- PDF + EPUB, for phone, tablet, computer or e-reader
- Every future edition free
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Coming next: The Sunday Table, the long Sunday dishes and feast days for a crowd. Buyers hear first.
How the book was made
My mother kept accounts
We came over in 1962 from a hill village in Calabria. I was ten. My father was laid off every winter, and my mother sewed. Every week she sat at the kitchen table with a cheap ruled book and wrote down the money we had, what she bought, what she cooked from it, and what was left.
When I was thirteen she handed me the pencil. She talked, I wrote.
She died in 2009 and the books came to me. When my granddaughter called to ask how we made one of our dishes, the only answer was a line of figures nobody but me could read. So I cooked every dish again, measured it, timed it, worked out what a pot costs today, and wrote it out in plain English with my mother’s note beside it.
I made it for my grandchildren. Now it’s yours too.
Nonna Mena
What this book won’t do
It’s not a restaurant book.
Home dishes from a poor kitchen. Some are plain, and I say so.
There are no photographs.
Each step tells you how it should look, smell and sound instead.
It takes a little time.
Beans want soaking the night before. Less money, more patience.
Sometimes the shop wins.
Canned beans on a night you forgot to soak. The book tells you where.
The First Pot Promise
Cook one pot from it. If it isn’t for you, email within 7 days and you get every cent back. No questions, and you keep the book.
Questions
What exactly do I get?
A PDF and an EPUB of Poco, ma Buono: 110 dishes on 384 pages, with the week planner, cupboard list, conversions and two indexes, emailed within a minute.
Can I read it on my phone?
Yes. The type is large and the contents are clickable: tap a dish and you’re there.
Can I print it?
Yes, on ordinary letter paper. Print the dishes you’re cooking and the week planner.
Is this a subscription?
No. You pay once. Nothing renews, nothing ships.
What happens when the clock runs out?
The $37 price is held for you for 137 minutes from your first visit. After that, the book is $49.
I’ve never really cooked. Will I manage?
That’s who it’s for. Every step has a time and a sign to look for, and every dish says what goes wrong and how to fix it.
Do I need special ingredients?
Almost everything comes from an ordinary American supermarket. A few dishes need an Italian grocery, such as salt cod or wheat berries.
I lost the file.
Use the link in your receipt email, or reply to it and we’ll send the files again.
A few real ingredients, a little patience, nothing thrown away
That’s all my mother had, and she fed us well. Now you can do the same at your own stove.
Poco, ma buono.