I have had a lifelong obsession with food, and that obsession has shaped my life completely.

I’ve been fixated on the sensory experience of eating since I was tiny. Though I’ve always loved eating, my early years were definitely filled with a variety of food aversions. As I’ve grown, my palate has widened exponentially, but I still hate what I hate (looking at you, horseradish and cilantro). I spent my childhood days with my grandmother while she cooked huge meals for our huge family filled with picky eaters, and delighted in serving everyone the foods they loved. I starting working in restaurants when I was 14, and I have been fascinated by people’s order modifications ever since. It’s been a passion project of mine, to treat people the way I wanted to be treated….with respect for the foods that offend or delight my senses.

So I earned a Bachelors of Applied Arts in Food Service Management with minors in both nutrition and sociology. I became focused on where food comes from, who has access to which foods, and how that food affects our bodies. I studied alongside the Dietetics students who would go on to become Registered Dietitians, and we were all endlessly fascinated by the incredible advances the nutritional world was making every day. I was also a dietary aid at the local hospital during those years. I got a whole different nutritional education there, and it did not align with my academic education.

After school, I had a random opportunity to live in a tiny village in the Loire Valley, France for 7 months. There, I got yet another education on food. It was a very slow life, tending to guests at an 800 year old B&B by day, tagging along with the locals by night. We ate local foods, drank local wines, and I knew I could never go back to my old life in Michigan. I decided that when my work visa was up, I would settle in Portland, OR, where the food culture aligns with my interests and values. After 20 years, I’m still in madly love.

In 2013, I (along with my incredible partners) opened The Brooklyn House Restaurant. We created a space that offered small farm-direct, European-style comfort food that was completely gluten, soy, and peanut-free. People loved it, and immediately started asking if we could accommodate other dietary restrictions, which we happily did. Soon, we were approached by the National University of Natural Medicine ( which was still a college back then), for specialized catering events that met various dietary specifications. We became their preferred go-to for all their catering events, large and small. Many of their practitioners began referring their patients to our restaurant, especially their patients with SIBO. We were even featured in the documentary, Food As Medicine. (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hynNIf2M6n0)

We became specialists in serving SIBO-protocol compliant meals that were customized for each customer’s individual needs. Eventually, other naturopathic clinics were referring their patients to us, and our Yelp reviews were filled with stories of how people were getting more than a meal from us. They got safety, respect, attention and creativity; and an exceptional meal, no matter how long their list of restrictions was. People shared their stories with us; stories that helped me understand the gravity of what we were doing for people…

One woman cried as she told me she’d made a decade of anniversary meals because no restaurant was willing to cook with her restrictions, and that they were with us at The Brooklyn House for their 20th anniversary. One man came to the front desk to tell me that his husband suffered from debilitating OCD that left him constantly anxious about eating, and that ours was the first restaurant he’d felt safe eating in since they’d been married. Another man came in regularly to rejoice as his SIBO protocol list expanded, and we’d celebrate every new Brussel sprout he was allowed on his plate.

During my years at the Brooklyn House, I discovered that I had a true passion and skill for supporting people who are managing health conditions with medically specific diets. I sincerely enjoy supporting people who are committed to their treatment plans but are struggling to navigate their changing food habits. One common theme I’ve noticed with all the people I’ve helped is that telling their food stories had everything to do with them making meaningful changes in their relationships with food.

I take a holistic approach in my work, combining years of studying nutrition, food preparation, sociology, trauma and the mind-body connection, yoga, meditation, and more.

Becoming a certified Food Stories coach was the final piece of the puzzle for me. I wanted the guidance of actual naturopathic doctors to feel fully confident in my capabilities to help support patients and practitioners to see more success in their diet-based health goals. The Food Stories coaching program has given me the clinical knowledge I needed to gain that confidence.

Besides the knowledge and skills I learned in the Food Stories coaching, I also draw wisdom from a variety of therapeutic modalities and social liberation workers. The list is long, and includes but is not nearly limited to Tara Brach’s Radical Acceptance, Richard Schwartz’s Internal Family Systems, Laurence Heller’s NeuroAffective Relational Model, Tricia Hersey’s Rest is Resistance, Michelle Cassandra Johnson’s Skill in Action, Kristen Neff’s Fierce Self Compassion, Devon Price’s Unmasking Autism, adrienne maree brown’s Pleasure Activism, and Hillary Kinavey and Dana Sturtevant’s Body Trust.  So much of my philosophy and approach comes from the insights I have gained from studying these teachings that I had to give them credit here.  I am forever in their debt.