Rosa Marchetti

Ma Never Wrote It Down

Italian home cooking that finally tastes right. 110 recipes from my mother's kitchen, with the why behind every step.

Two minutes. Sound on.

Get My Copy NowInstant PDF · $39.99 · 7-day money back, and you keep the book See what's inside first ▼

How it works

  1. 1
    Tap the button. You pay through Gumroad, the same checkout thousands of authors use. I never see your card.
  2. 2
    The book is in your email in thirty seconds. A PDF. It opens on your phone, your tablet, or your computer. Tap a chapter in the contents and it jumps there.
  3. 3
    Keep it. Nothing ships. No account to make, no password to remember. The link stays in your email. Print it if you like it on paper.

What's in it

My mother cooked on Federal Hill for thirty years and never wrote a thing down. I followed her with a pencil. These are the twenty-seven chapters, with the page numbers, so you can see it's a real book.

235 pages · 110 recipes · big print · cups and grams · an index at the back

Look inside

Four real pages, so you know what you're buying.

Page 56: the seven things she did to every pot of macaroni
Page 56 — the seven things she did to every pot of macaroni.
Page 67: the Sunday gravy, step by step
Page 67 — the Sunday gravy, step by step, with the why under each one.
Page 113: the meatballs
Page 113 — the meatballs. A third bread. That's the secret.
Page 109: the leftovers map
Page 109 — the map. Tape it inside a cabinet. It's the whole week.
Get My Copy NowInstant PDF · $39.99 · 7-day money back, and you keep the book

What a week actually costs

A jar of sauce, feeds three$4.00
A can of tomatoes, feeds the week$1.50
Frozen meatballs, twenty of them$8.00
Twenty meatballs from the book, with the bread you already have$9.00
Sunday from the book: gravy, meatballs, sausage, two chickens — and three more dinners out of itabout $30
The same family, dinner bought every night, four people, seven nightsabout $140

Nobody's tricking you. They're just selling. One Sunday from the book pays for the book, and then it keeps paying.

The book

One payment. Yours forever.

$39.99
  • 110 recipes, 235 pages, big print
  • Cups and grams, Fahrenheit and Celsius
  • The why under every step
  • After every recipe: what to do if it didn't come out
  • Opens on your phone in thirty seconds. No account.
Get My Copy NowInstant PDF · $39.99 · 7-day money back, and you keep the book

Seven days, my word on it: if the book doesn't earn its place in your kitchen, write to me and your money comes back. And you keep the book.

Questions people ask

I'm not good with computers. Will I manage?

Yes. You tap the button, you type your email and your card, and the book is in your email. Tap it and it opens. If you can read this page, you can do that. And if anything goes wrong, write to me and I'll sort it out.

Is this a subscription?

No. One payment, once. Nothing renews. Nothing ships.

What if I lose the file?

The link stays in your email forever. Open the receipt, tap the button, it's there. Or write to me and I'll send it again.

How do I open it on my phone?

Tap "Download Your Cookbook" in the email and the book opens. If you'd like it saved on your phone, press and hold the button and choose "Download Linked File" — it goes into your Files app. Either way the link never expires.

Can I print it?

Yes. It's a PDF. Print the whole thing, or just the recipe cards at the back — they're made for that.

Can I get my money back?

Yes. Cook from it for a week. If it hasn't earned its place, write to me within seven days at rosamarchetti24@gmail.com and I'll send the money back, every dollar. You keep the book. I'd rather that than have you feel taken.

Is it in cups or grams?

Both, in every recipe. And every oven temperature is in Fahrenheit and Celsius.

Are the recipes hard?

No. It's the food my mother made every night for six people on no money. Macaroni, gravy, meatballs, soup, bread, the greens. The hardest thing in the book is waiting three hours for the gravy.

About Rosa

Rosa Marchetti at her kitchen table

I'm Rosa. I grew up on Federal Hill in Providence, in a house where the gravy went on at seven on Sunday morning and my mother never once looked at a recipe, because there weren't any. She'd come over from outside Naples in 1951 and everything she knew was in her hands.

I was the one who stood next to her and bugged her. How much is that. Why'd you do that. I wrote it on envelopes for years and kept them in a shoebox. When she passed in 2009, the shoebox was what I had. This book is the shoebox, typed up.

Write to me at rosamarchetti24@gmail.com. Every message comes to me.