I love food! Growing it, preparing it, fermenting it and most especially eating it! Food has to taste delicious or else it doesn’t nourish you at body AND soul level.

Looking for a chef but not just any chef? I’m a Restorative EcoChef. With my experience, nutrition background and love of eating, I bring a whole other dynamic and vibration to food that no one else is offering out there. My focus and specialty is food combining, fermenting, culturing, sprouting, locally sourced, seasonal foods with minimal food waste and a small carbon footprint.

What is a Restorative EcoChef?

• • Restorative: having the ability to restore health, strength, or a feeling of well-being.

• EcoChef: supports local food systems; works with the seasons, honors the people who raise food in a sustainable way, creates minimal food waste and keeps a small carbon footprint.

The way I prepare and use food has the ability to show and support your body to heal itself at a cellular level while supporting local, seasonal farms and businesses, keeping a small carbon footprint and reducing food waste.

Why I Cook

I learned early on in life food could either make me feel great or feel terrible. In my late teens I was put on a very strict rotation diet; the foods I was allowed were very limited. Food was boring and tasteless. Ugh, took my appetite away to be honest. It was then I realized if these were the only foods I could eat it was up to me to find ways to make them taste good, create a variety of ways to eat them and bring some excitement to them. I loved cooking but had been too sick to put much energy into it so what to do?

The criteria was simple; fast, delicious, nutritious healing meals using the foods I could eat. And the catch was I could not eat the same food again until the fourth day! Up to that point I usually stir fried or slow cooked everything but always with the same seasoning. This is where my love affair with herbs and spices began. Just by changing my seasonings I could create an entirely different meal using the same ingredients regularly. Those days I used mostly dried and very little fresh.

I have come a long way from those days and am so grateful for my health struggles that taught me to get creative, to test new ideas and play with my food. I’ve never been a big recipe follower, I use them more for inspiration than anything and back then there was no internet so I would collect and spend hours reading food magazines and cookbooks. And I still love reading cookbooks and perusing recipes online.

After I got my nutrition certification and began mentoring with Dr. Jack Tips, Ph.D, CCN I started applying what I was learning to the way I prepared and combined food. As I implemented these changes throughout life my health got better and better. I began to heal deeper and deeper and finally to flourish without fear of relapse, illness or dis-ease. Energy was abundant, pain gone, hormones balanced, digestion functioning, happy, joyful; living was fun for the first time in my life! I became a whole new person living life as my fullest and most vibrant self. In more recent years I added the fermenting and culturing into my lifestyle habits and that again changed everything taking me to even deeper and higher vibrational levels. My private one:one coaching clients and participants in programs I chef for have also experienced these benefits for themselves. You can read more of my story here.

Why I Want To Cook For You

Food; what you eat, how you prepare it and how you eat it all play an important way in how you are nourished, not  just on a surface level, but also at a cellular and soul level. Over the last 17 years I have developed ways to make cooking in Live Vibrantly style a simple and delicious way of life. You can find some of my recipes on my blog, under the Nourish category or get the whole blueprint for Living Vibrantly in my book.

I don’t do labels, diets, fads, or the latest crazes. I use traditional methods with real, living seasonal food preferably sourced locally to support your way of eating. The principles I use and teach can and should be applied no matter what your preferences, whether all plant-based or with the inclusion of animal foods.

My passion is to show and teach you through the food you eat how to set the foundation to launch your life beyond the ordinary, beyond your excuses, beyond your boundaries and into vibrant realms. Yes! that is what food can do for you and the best part is it’s super simple. What better way to educate yourself than to taste delicious food and learn about why it supports you at that level! I have never prepared food for an event or individual without getting questions, even when I’m just “cooking” and not “teaching”; it just always happens. I love and invite curiosity; it inspires me.

Let’s Create Together

Who or what do I usually cook for? That’s pretty much limitless and up to you though these days I prefer smaller groups and usually set my limit at 15 individuals and there is some flexibility in that. Did I mention I travel too?!

Already a nutritionist? Chef? Want to take your education and skills to a higher level? Take your clients to the next level of healing and wellness? Several times a year I run an intimate Restorative EcoChef certification program that is a combination of online training and 2 five day intensives in beautiful British Columbia. I also accept fellowships several times a year. (use the contact form below to ask about fellowships) You can take advantage of my “Cook With Me” series and learn virtually at your own pace as well. These days I travel much less; locally I go back and forth between Bellingham, WA and Vancouver, BC.