About Me
I was born and raised in a small town in Western Massachusetts. Growing up both my parents, and later my stepparents, were avid gardeners. In my earliest years my dad grew lettuce and tomatoes to sell to the local co-op. 
I remember my parents staying up at night after I had gone to bed and freezing fresh corn to eat through the winter, and my mom making pesto from fresh home grown basil with her friends. I have always loved the smells and sounds of nature and spent a considerable amount of my childhood outside playing with the plants. I have also always been fascinated by health, from an early age soaking up information and knowledge from those around me. It was quite fitting then that I took my first course in making herbal care products when I was 13 and have always held it in my heart. As a teenager when I babysat I would bring along a bag of games and activities and the favorite was always making herbal dream pillows.
As far as cooking goes I fell in love with the kitchen in the later years of elementary school when I remember rushing through my homework so that I could help my mom cook dinner. Together in the kitchen, she taught me what she knew and gave me a great sense of comfort for moving around the space and making food appear. Later, while attending college at UC Berkeley I lived in a large co-op where I cooked for two years in an industrial kitchen. I prepared dinners and lunch for 100 plus members and made fresh hummus and salsa for the house weekly.
In the Spring of 2007 I expanded my own home remedy knowledge and began a 13 month training in Herbal Medicine with Kami McBride. In this course I learned the healing properties of herbs and spices, tools and methods for making a plethora of herbal medicines, body system therapeutics, lifestyle approaches for health and vitality and much more. As someone who loves to cook, I found that Herbalism began to inform all the work that I did in the kitchen. I began to cook medicinally, using herbs and spices that were appropriate for the occasion, the season and the food. The powers of not just herbs and spices, but grains, nuts, vegetables, fruits, meats and all ingredients began to appear to me. And I realized that FOOD IS OUR MEDICINE. In this country we spend great sums of money on healthcare and natural as well as conventional medicine. While some of this is the fault of our privatized healthcare system, blame is also to be placed on a healthcare philosophy that treats symptoms rather than causes.
A healthy lifestyle and informed relationship with food is our best preventative and curative medicine and can help address the root cause of illness and other conditions before they start. The art of preparing nutritionally dense food is an ancient knowledge created by traditional communities all over the world and has lost practice in many places today. I am here, along with many others (see resources), to help restore sustainable and healthful food practices. By improving our diet and our lifestyle around food we stand to literally change our entire outlook and position in the world. We must start today at home in our own kitchens, tomorrow in our children's cafeterias, and the next day in the political and financial centers of our country. If politicians were herbalists, I am convinced the world would be a better and more peaceful place.
These experiences have led me on a quest to restore our relationship with food as an integral and necessary component of saving the world, ourselves and our environment. Through my classes I aim to restore our relationship with food production,our knowledge of the healing and nutritional powers of food, our practices of preparation and consumption and our relationships with our own body and health. Please join me on this quest in whatever way is appropriate and necessary for you. All are welcome and all are needed!
After many wonderful years working with people and plants in Northern California I now live in Amherst Massachusetts.
~The information on this site is not meant to diagnose or treat any illnesses, conditions or diseases and should not be used in place of medical advice.