Need a fast and easy way to get dinner on the table for your hungry tribe? Or what about a sweet treat to gobble up when the dirty dishes have been cleared? Or maybe a carefully crafted adult beverage to finish out the evening? Chef Mary Nolan has you covered. Her platforms (@chefmarynolan on YouTube and Instagram) are chock-full of ideas and recipes designed to be delicious yet accessible, so even those who don’t know a colander from a cheese grater can score a victory or two in the kitchen. That’s not to say she can’t slice, dice, flip and flambé with the best of them; she has collaborated with the Food Network and spent years as Bon Appétit’s executive chef. But now the kitchen she frequents the most is the one inside her home on Chew Street (yes, Chew Street) in Allentown.
Long before farm-to-table became the official name of a mainstream movement uniting food purveyors with food preparers, Nolan was living that life in her native Iowa. She grew up in Davenport and spent a lot of time at her grandparents’ farms, where she says she learned to appreciate the origin of food. Her introduction to what is possible when all the right ingredients are brought together came from her mother, Patricia. “I was up at the stove from a very early age,” says Nolan. “I have always loved to cook and create.” Her mother also instilled in her a “waste not, want not” mentality that has stayed with her throughout her career; one of Nolan’s reels on Instagram describes how she saves her overripe bananas in a plastic container in the freezer until she has enough to defrost and make banana bread.
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After high school Nolan pursued a degree in journalism at the University of Wisconsin–Madison but stayed connected to food. She spent a semester in Tuscany, Italy, where she lived and dined in a villa that occasionally gave her and her fellow students a peek behind the curtain in the kitchen. “They would show us how they made the lasagna or the pasta,” she says. “The quality of ingredients was just so amazing. It was such an eye-opening experience.”
She had a clear vision for what she hoped would come, post-graduation, as a bona fide food journalist: “I always wanted to live in New York City. That was my dream and my goal and I specifically wanted to work at Gourmet magazine. I didn’t even care what the job was. I took the job and I moved right after I graduated.” She didn’t know a soul in the city, and she hadn’t even lined up a place to live. But she had the job. Nolan started on the sales side but later was named a creative services coordinator and copywriter. Still, something was missing: “I was really feeling like I was in the right place but doing the wrong thing,” says Nolan.
She took a chance and tried out for The Next Food Network Star chef competition. She progressed through the audition process. Clearly the network saw something in her because she was asked to film a separate pilot. Ultimately the show wasn’t picked up but Nolan has no regrets: “It turned out to be a great learning experience, it just wasn’t the experience I thought it was going to be.” And it helped solidify her next stop: culinary school. “I loved every minute of it,” she says of her time at the Institute of Culinary Education in New York City, which concluded with an externship at a restaurant on the Upper West Side. She met her now-husband, Jim Johannes, at a pop-event the restaurant hosted in 2008. She moved to Philadelphia the year after to continue the relationship and they were married in 2011.
That was the first of three major changes for Nolan around that time. Just a few months after tying the knot, Nolan and Johannes, a urologist, moved to Allentown when he accepted a job with Lehigh Valley Health Network. Nolan was settling into a new job of her own with Bon Appétit, where, as executive chef, her plate was full. She was a brand ambassador, as well as a recipe developer, a teacher of cooking classes and a fixture in promotional materials and at company events. It was a position she held for 10 years until the end of 2020. By then, the COVID-19 pandemic was in full bloom, and Nolan was learning to lean into her life in the Lehigh Valley a bit more. Since she was no longer dashing off to work in New York City, she had more time to get to know her neighbors and the community around her. She also decided she wanted to share more of herself, which, naturally, meant sharing more of her gastronomic wizardry.
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Nolan began posting more of her own recipes and ideas on Instagram, along with easy-to-follow tutorials. Her topics cover a lot of territory in and out of the kitchen, ranging from how to cut up a pineapple the proper way to hunting down deals at Costco (which Nolan calls her Disneyland) to mastering an almond butter miso dressing. When it comes to cooking, Nolan says she tries to come up with recipes that are foolproof. “I want the recipe to work but I want people to actually be able to eat it,” she says. “Instagram is kind of fantasyland. A lot of people like to look at things but don’t necessarily make it. I enjoy making it accessible for people in the Valley to actually be able to try it.” She favors salads, dressings and cocktails, although soups, baked goods and even full meals aren’t out of the question.
But what makes a recipe foolproof, anyway? Coming up with something that goes down easy is only part of the equation; laying out a reliable roadmap to that most satisfactory satiation is equally important. “No two recipes are going to turn out exactly the same but I try and write them so they work for everyone,” Nolan says. That means including things like visual cues rather than strict cook times because stoves and ovens can sometimes behave differently.
Yet even the most alluring of IG reels might not be enough to sway those foodies who’d much rather sample the cuisine than make it themselves. Lucky for them, Nolan also occasionally sells her creations (fully prepared) at pop-ups around the Valley. It may be one of the only ways to taste her handiwork for the foreseeable future. Although “there is an energy to working in restaurants that is unparalleled,” she says, she has no plans to open a place of her own anytime soon. She knows all too well the demands of a career spent in the back of the house—or the front of the house, for that matter—and with three young children (two sons, 10 and 8, and a daughter, 5) spare time is at a premium. She also admits she would probably struggle with ceding control in the kitchen. “My food is so personal to me that I have a hard time letting other people help me with it.”
Back on Chew Street, though, she does share the load. Nolan says all three of her children often contribute in one way or another at mealtimes: “They’re always helping me in the kitchen, just like I helped my mom.” Johannes, too, likes to cook. Ultimately, Nolan says, it’s both her outlet and her inspiration. “Some people like to paint. I love to cook,” Nolan says. “I love to see the symphony of flavor and texture come together perfectly.”
Mary's Blood Orange Margarita
Makes 1 | Recipe by Mary Nolan
Easy to double (or quadruple!), this margarita tastes as good as it looks. You can salt the rim, if that suits your taste. You can also serve it over ice in a lowball glass.
Ingredients
Kosher salt for rim (if desired)
Blood orange (or other citrus) wedge for rim and garnish
1 ½ oz. (3 Tbsp.) tequila blanco
1 ½ oz. (3 Tbsp.) freshly squeezed lime juice
1 ½ oz. (3 Tbsp.) freshly squeezed blood orange juice (navel orange, tangerine and grapefruit are all great substitutes)
1 oz. (2 Tbsp.) light agave syrup
Instructions
If a salt rim is desired, place a shallow, even layer of kosher salt on a small plate.
Trace the edge of a martini glass with citrus wedge and dip into salt, shaking off excess.
Fill a cocktail shaker with ice. Add tequila, lime juice, blood orange juice and agave.
Shake vigorously and strain into prepared glass. Garnish with orange wedge.
Published as “Insight” in the April 2024 edition of Lehigh Valley Style magazine.
