Alexandra Jamieson

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“The training I received at NGI was invaluable and rare. I haven’t found a program like it anywhere else in the world. This culinary school is training the healing chefs that our country so desperately needs. The skills I learned there prepared me for the career that I have now, and I am constantly grateful for the program and the people who made it happen.”

Bio
Alexandra Jamieson began cooking professionally at Un Mondo Leggero in Milan, Italy where she created regional, vegan, macrobiotic and seasonal organic menus. Upon returning to New York, she worked as the pastry chef at one of the city’s finest organic restaurants. As the vegetarian chef at Paul Newman’s Hole in the Wall Gang Camp, she spent an entire summer preparing healthy, fun foods for children with life-threatening illnesses.

Her current endeavors include teaching cooking classes, lecturing on the topic of holistic health at conferences and universities and food writing. Her first cookbook, The Great American Detox Diet, was inspired by her experience with fiancé, Morgan Spurlock, filming Super Size Me. www.healthychefalex.com

Bryant Terry

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“Since graduating from the Natural Gourmet Institute in 2002, I have manifested all the goals mapped out in my application essay for the Chef’s Training Program (CTP) plus so much more than I could have ever imagined I would have accomplished in three years. Being surrounded by supportive and progressive staff, teachers and students that year provided sacred time and space for deep learning and transformation.

Although I had been cooking all of my life, the CTP helped me refine my food preparation skills and gave me the foundation to explore many new culinary techniques. In addition, the CTP helped increase my confidence to envision and manifest several food-related endeavors including founding a not-for-profit that trains young people to be food justice activists, starting a small catering company, and developing all of the menus for a book that combines recipes to bring to life a healthy organic kitchen with ideas about food politics, organic food, and sustainable agriculture. Furthermore, the Natural Gourmet connected me with a strong nationwide network of amazing chefs who are literally changing the way that people are eating around the globe.”

My support of the Natural Gourmet is boundless, and I enjoy giving back to a community that gives so much to me. I am proud to be an Alumnus of the Natural Gourmet.

Bio
Bryant Terry is a chef, author, food justice activist and founder of b-healthy! (Building Healthy Eating and Lifestyles to Help Youth), a New York City-based not-for-profit organization. Bryant is nationally recognized for his persistent effort to innovatively create a more just and sustainable food system. His work has received recognition in Newsweek, Vibe, ReadyMade, Zink, Organic Style (where he was named one of “Tomorrow’s Environmental Power Players”) and many other publications. Bryant lectures and facilitates workshops across the country for youth and adults about cooking, food politics, and the relationship between diet and health. His first book, Grub: Ideas for an Urban Organic Kitchen (Tarcher/Penguin) with co-author Anna Lappé will be on shelves April 2006. In addition to graduating from the Natural Gourmet, Bryant also received an M.A. in History from New York University and a B.A. with honors in English from Xavier University of Louisiana. Bryant lives in Brooklyn and Oakland. www.eatgrub.org | www.grubbook.com | www.b-healthy.org | www.bryant-terry.com

Chris Erickson

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“The Natural Gourmet Institute gave me a foundation of skills and knowledge to create my own style of cooking. Learning how to cook delicious, healthy food stands above the rest."

Bio
Chris Erickson has held the titles of Personal Chef, Executive Chef, Consulting Chef, Catering Manager, Cooking Instructor and Restaurateur.

After leaving the Natural Gourmet, he began his culinary career at a small café in Greenwich, CT called Organic Planet (formerly Love and Serve). When he took over as Chef, business was anything but booming, but during the 3 years he spent there, he transformed the menu, increased revenue 300% and had soup orders from as far away as Manhattan! Patrons were lining up at the door to feast on his gourmet global cuisine. Eventually, he opened his own restaurant in Newport, RI, where he continued to develop his unique style of cooking.

He has worked as a Consulting Chef with numerous restaurant groups from Washington, DC to Maine. He was instrumental in developing recipes and training the staff for the opening of the organic, "fast casual" restaurants in New England know as O'Naturals.

An introduction to nutritionist and author, Ann Louise Gittleman, resulted in his establishment of the Fat Flush Plan Meal Delivery Business on a nationwide basis. In between sending out Fat Flush meals to his clients, he caters elegant events at the mansions of Newport and teaches private cooking classes to some very lucky students.

Nathan Donahoe

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“What impressed me most about Natural Gourmet was not just the classroom material, but the vast dietary knowledge of the staff. My happiest memories were hanging out after class with staff members talking about various diets. They lived and live the theories that I read about in my textbooks, and their raw experiences are the hidden gems at the school, to be unearthed by those students eager enough to find them.”

Bio
A strong believer in food as a healing tool, Nathan found his first dream job at The Canyon, a drug and alcohol recovery center in Malibu. He and another NGI grad, Diane O’Connell, share the position of Head Chef. Nathan was attracted to the philosophy that diet is a key component in the recovery process at The Canyon. He’s able to use the highest quality meats, fish and produce imaginable. He ferments his own pickles, makes sourdough bread and produces mozzarella and ricotta cheeses using fresh milk from grass-fed cows. Juicing is another important part of the diet he’s created for his clients. Nathan is part of the raw food movement in Los Angeles and enjoys the works of both Aajonus Vonderplanitz and Weston Price. All have influenced the cuisine he offers at The Canyon, much to the delight of his clients who take great comfort in the nourishing food he provides during the recovery process.

Nikole Paulos

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“I am so happy that I found the Natural Gourmet Institute. To have the opportunity to study cooking and nutrition in an institution that so closely matches my personal philosophy on healing through food was a dream come true. When I was researching cooking schools, my first priority was to find a school that understood that food can be delicious, beautiful and nutritious -- that health food isn't bland and boring, but full of flavor, color and vital life force energy. I found all of this and more in my training through the Natural Gourmet. I loved my experience at NGI. For the first time in my life in a school setting I found myself on the edge of my seat in all my classes. I felt like a sponge. I was so excited and inspired by the information I was learning, I couldn't soak it up fast enough.”

Bio
Nikole is living the farm to table experience in a very literal sense. She is the Garden Manager as well as Kitchen Manager and Head Chef at Laurel Springs Ranch Retreat in Santa Barbara, CA. She plans the garden at the Ranch, plants the crops, maintains them, then harvests and preserves them. As the Chef in the Ranch kitchen, she plans all the menus, orders supplies, trains her staff and creates delicious, garden-fresh daily specials. And if that's not enough, she's also the Pastry Chef at Goodie Goddess Treats, her own mail order organic cake company specializing in vegan and wheat-free desserts.

Her prior positions include 5 years as Executive Chef at Global Fitness Adventures in Sedona, AZ, Consultant and Manager at Casbah Tea House in Tucson, and Executive Chef and Manager at The Front Street Café in Fairplay, CO.

Veronica Rodriguez Ojeda

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“It was at a crossroads in my life when I stumbled upon the Natural Gourmet Institute. A Chef Training Program with an emphasis on natural, health-supportive cuisine was very enticing, so I decided to take my passion for cooking seriously. Throughout the program, I was able to acquire a true understanding of food and develop my culinary skills in a nurturing environment that encouraged creativity. The knowledge I acquired gave me the confidence to launch my own business.”

Bio
A native of Puerto Rico, Veronica returned home upon graduation and started a meal delivery service. Determined to accelerate the organic agriculture movement on the island which lagged far behind that in the US, she set out on a mission to find anybody who was growing organic produce. Though the university had nothing in their agronomy curriculum coming close to organic agriculture, she was fortunate enough to meet some students who were dabbling in organic farming on their own. Through meetings with them, she began to meet other local farmers who were doing the same. Gradually, she met farmers all over the island, and to her credit, succeeded in organizing the first Organic Farmers’ Market in Puerto Rico. Happily, it became an ongoing event at which she set up her own table each month. Having developed relationships with so many of the local farmers, she was eventually able to realize her dream: to open a small café with a menu that features fresh, local, seasonal, organic produce.