Mine is a lemons to lemonade story. Many years ago I was given an opportunity either to become infuriated with the health care system or to do something about our health care culture. I chose the latter.
I was cursed and blessed with medical problems for which conventional medicine offers many treatments but no solutions. That forced me to clean up my bad habits and diet. The struggles evolved into a passion for school gardening and feeding children well and an equally driving desire to help people cook and eat their way to health. My devotion to primary prevention in the form of garden-based education manifests as the outdoor classrooms of Riverside Elementary School in Princeton. And my love of solving problems with food manifests as the Suppers Progams, a network of groups of people who have a wide range of reasons to want to prepare food together and eat it.
Suppers evolves as people with lifestyle-related challenges start meetings and adapt the program design to suit their needs. All meetings include food preparation and the sharing of a meal. So, for example, people with diabetes role up their sleeves and support each other’s efforts to manage or reverse it with food. Mothers strategize how to make healthy food so delicious even their husbands will eat it. And people who just want to forge social relationships based on healthy living invite cooks and nutritionists and farmers to join the discussion at their tables. I am credited with being the founder of Suppers, but in reality, the members create the program every time they gather at a table with whole food and pure intentions.
My three grown children love kale and collard greens, a result of my parenting mantra, “Don’t ever give up.”
My extensive travels keep me in Princeton.
My favorite quote is from Martin Luther: “If I knew that tomorrow the world would go to pieces, I would still plant my apple tree.”
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