After many years working in the nonprofit field, including most recently at Pesticide Action Network, I am now combining my concern for the environment with my passion for cooking for others by being a personal chef.  For me, cooking is both a creative outlet and a form of meditation. It brings me great joy to feed people well, so their palates are stimulated and their bodies nourished.  

I am proud to be a self-taught chef. While growing up, often frozen dinners were the easiest option for my busy single mother. At the age of eight, looking for more variety to T.V. dinners, I began thinking about other possibilities. I asked my mom, who is a fabulous cook, to teach me. She did so, and I’ve been in the kitchen ever since.

 

I’ve been cooking exclusively vegetarian since 1985 when I read the introduction to the cookbook Laurel’s Kitchen.  From that book I learned about the impact meat vs. vegetable protein production has on the land and was moved by an expose on the treatment of livestock. Thus began my lifelong journey to cook well without doing harm.

 

Over all these years, I’ve delighted in improvising in the kitchen. You will benefit from these perfected recipes that are robust in flavor and the essence of a healthy diet.

 

Professional Affiliations and Training

 

§         American Personal Chef Association

§          Chef’s Collaborative (connecting chefs with local farmers to promote sustainable agriculture).

      Slow Food USA

§        Millennium Restaurant  (classes taken with head chef Eric Tucker)

§         Tante Marie Cooking School (classes)

§         Volunteered at Green Gulch Farm and Occidental Arts & Ecology Center garden

§         Created and managed Unitarian-Universalist Society’s volunteer dinner project for a homeless shelter in Northampton, Massachusetts from 1993 - 1996