Meet June

June Hartwell

June Hartwell is the pen name of Hearth & Penny's founder, who develops and cooks every Kitchen-tested recipe. June's family stories are written with AI assistance and checked by June for accuracy; names and places are changed. Our AI & editorial policy

"I learned to cook in a kitchen where the grocery money lived in a coffee can. You learn fast what's worth spending on."

June grew up in Tell City, Indiana, a river town on the Ohio, raised mostly by a grandmother who could stretch a chicken across three suppers and still send you home with biscuits. These days the Sunday table fills up with grown kids and grandkids, and the rules haven't changed: one pan when it will do, beans and grains when money's tight, and nothing thrown out that could be soup.

Every recipe here shows what it costs to make. The ones marked Kitchen-tested have been cooked in June's kitchen before they went up.