You Gotta Eat: Real-Life Strategies for Feeding Yourself When Cooking Feels Impossible

A trained chef teaches you how to keep yourself fed in the face of stress, burnout, and exhaustion—and have fun doing it.

Delivery is expensive. Eating a spoonful of peanut butter is depressing. You can’t imagine having the energy to chop an onion. But somehow, you gotta eat. How does anyone feed themselves under these conditions?

Enter You Gotta Eat, a friendly, accessible resource for getting something on your plate when you have too much on your plate. Part cookbook, part pep talk, and part action plan, You Gotta Eat offers tips and tactics—plus ten "do exactly this" recipes—for making effortless food that’s nourishing, tasty, and even a little fun. Choose your current energy level and learn important kitchen skills:

If you can open a package: Turn instant ramen into a feastIf you can assemble a plate: Make a cheese board fit for a kingIf you can press a button: Whip up perfect eggs in the microwaveIf you can wield a knife: Turn any leftovers into a hearty casseroleAnd dozens more ideas for living deliciously without impossible effort!

Whether you’re burnt out, depressed, overscheduled, a new parent, living away from home for the first time, or some combination of the above, let food editor, classically-trained chef, and nacho enthusiast Margaret Eby show you how to make your eating experience better—and easier—in every way.

About the Author

Margaret Eby is the deputy food editor for the Philadelphia Inquirer, and a former senior editor at Food & Wine, MyRecipes, and Extra Crispy. She has written for the New York Review of Books, Rolling Stone, Vanity Fair, Bon Appetit, the New Yorker, the New York Times, and the Los Angeles Times, among other publications. Her previous book, South Toward Home: Travels in Southern Literature, was published by Norton in September 2015. Margaret graduated from Barnard College and completed an M.A. in Cultural Reporting and Criticism at NYU. She also completed a certificate program at the International Culinary Center in 2019.

Author Residence: Philadelphia, PA

Author Hometown: Birmingham, AL