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About the Author
Pam Rotella is a photojournalist who writes about health, alternative medicine, politics, and environmental issues.
Her experience in the kitchen began in early childhood, first learning to cook and bake from her mother, then branching out to her mother's cookbook collection and magazines. Pam became a vegetarian in 1984 during her early college years, and has remained near-vegan for most of her life, going completely vegan for more than a decade. She reinvented her favorite recipes to eliminate animal products, and also developed entirely new recipes, her own healthy vegan creations.
Pam's recipes feature a variety of healthy, whole natural foods prepared with simple methods. Recipes with short ingredient lists and quick cooking times reflect the need of working people to economize shopping and cooking times. Pam's techniques to produce healthy food quickly came first from a heavy academic schedule, and then a professional career typically accompanied by long commutes.
Work on her cookbook Vegan Vegetarian Cooking began In 1997 when she received a call from her brother, asking for her vegetarian chili recipe. They discussed several recipes that day, and her brother finally asked her to type them up and send them.
She quickly realized that the amount of time invested in compiling the recipes for her brother would be better spent making the recipes available to everyone in the form of a book. She started writing the cookbook in her Oceanside, California apartment in 1997, finishing the book and finding a publisher while working in Miami, Florida in early 1998.
The book's many recipes use a wide variety of ingredients, contributing to the book's many flavors, colors, and textures. Short ingredient lists, while reducing preparation time, also "let food be food," allowing individual flavors to come through. Pam has also minimized desserts and sweets for health reasons, choosing instead to introduce new recipes using the natural sweetness of fruit rather than sugar or other sweeteners.
While her book was awaiting printing at her publisher in 1998, Pam's car was hit by a speeding SUV on the road between Key Largo and Miami. This sent Pam on a new journey, learning about alternative medicine in an attempt to heal her injuries and return to work. The process of healing enough to work again took 1 & 1/2 years, but gave her a good knowledge of both alternative medicine and the politics/financial interests of the medical industry. Pam has since become an advocate for health freedom, and her articles on alternative health and the Clark zapper have attracted hundreds of thousands of readers. She also photographs and writes about many other issues and events.
Pam has a B.A. in history and sociology from the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee, and has worked in the information technology field as a computer application developer, project manager, and other roles since 1988. She often lives in Wisconsin or Virginia, but travels as needed for her jobs, and may be found anywhere within the mainland United States or Canada.
Her experience in the kitchen began in early childhood, first learning to cook and bake from her mother, then branching out to her mother's cookbook collection and magazines. Pam became a vegetarian in 1984 during her early college years, and has remained near-vegan for most of her life, going completely vegan for more than a decade. She reinvented her favorite recipes to eliminate animal products, and also developed entirely new recipes, her own healthy vegan creations. 