ROCKLAND — Beginning on September 15 and running through October 15, Midcoast writer and health advocate Malia Dell of Rockland, is running a Kickstarter fundraising campaign for her upcoming cookbook, Food That Works: Real Meals that Survive the 9 to 5. Following the books release in spring 2015, she will take this Rockland-born-book on tour visiting 10 major US cities. The 30-day Kickstarter campaign raises funds for the nation-wide book tour and other necessary promotion.

Food That Works is a cookbook for busy people, with jobs. It is a methodology around food shopping, selecting quality ingredients with minimal processing, reading ingredient labels, and chopping everything in advance, so healthy homemade meals are available throughout the hectic work week.

"By prepping all of your ingredients in advance you turn your fridge into an instant food buffet so you can simply assemble meals on the fly. Similar to how restaurants prep in their kitchens," Dell states. Food That Works is divided into five weeks, each with menus and shopping list where all the ingredients get used up in the recipes, so there is no waste. The recipes were designed to recreate the meals you love, fast, with minimal clean up.

From growing up in Honolulu, to receiving a degree in sociology, to working in corporate real estate, to living in the Mediterranean, to being a food-runner at Primo Restaurant, Dell’s story is quite eclectic. "Writing and self-publishing a book on my own has been quite the learning curve! Every aspect of this project has been self-taught. How to hire a free-lance editor? How to negotiate a contract with a book designer? I pretty much Google everything.  I research it, then I do it."

She has been working toward publication of Food That Works for four years. In addition, she will receive her certification this winter for wellness coaching. Dell aspires to launch a career promoting workplace wellness, and helping companies transform the office environment to one with more of an emphasis on health and preventative care. Food That Works will be just one of the many tools in her toolbox.

For more info, visit the website: www.foodthatworks.info or check out her Kickstarter campaign at: https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/foodthatworks/food-that-works-cookbook-tour