IEat Green – Edwina von Gal – 03.31.16

Edwina von Gal’s eponymous firm has been designing landscapes that are based on simplicity and nature for private and public clients since 1984. Edwina’s interest in plants, art and architecture has led to collaborations in widely diverse locations with a number of notable architects and artists including Annabelle Selldorf, Maya Lin , Richard Gluckman, Deborah Berke, Joe D’Urso, Frank Gehry, Richard Meier, Toshiko Mori, Richard Serra, Marilyn Minter, and David Salle.

Edwina’s landscapes have been published in most all of the major newspapers and design periodicals, plus a number of architecture, garden and landscape books. Her own book, Fresh Cuts, won the Quill And Trowel Award for Garden Writing. She has served on numerous boards and committees in the garden world and is currently on the LongHouse Garden Committee and the Board of Directors of Maya Lin’s “What is Missing” project.

In 2008 Edwina went to Panama to design a park for the Frank Gehry Biomuseo where co-founded the Azuero Earth Project which explores and implements sustainable, toxin-free land management practices in rural Panama. She then moved closer to home and, in 2013 founded the USA based Perfect Earth Project which promotes toxin-free lawns and landscapes.

Interview with Dr. Barbara Katz Rothman, author of “Bun in the Oven: How the Food and Birth Movements Resist Industrialization.”– 03.24.16

Barbara Katz Rothman, PhD, is Professor of Sociology, Public Health, Disability Studies and Women’s Studies at the City University of New York, where she runs the Food Studies concentration. Her books include IN LABOR; THE TENTATIVE PREGNANCY; RECREATING MOTHERHOOD; THE BOOK OF LIFE; WEAVING A FAMILY:UNTANGLING RACE AND ADOPTION, and LABORING ON, and the new BUN IN THE OVEN: How the Food and Birth Movements Resist Industrialization. She is Past President of Sociologists for Women in Society; the Society for the Study of Social Problems, and the Eastern Sociological Society. She is proud recipient of an award for “Midwifing the Movement” from the Midwives Alliance of North America.

Interview with Chef Daniel Boulud – 03.010.16

Daniel Boulud is Chef-Owner of several award-winning restaurants and the Feast & Fêtes catering company. While he hails from Lyon, France, it is in New York that he has truly mastered the dining scene and is today considered one of America’s leading culinary authorities. Raised on his family’s farm in the village of Saint-Pierre-de-Chandieu, the chef remains inspired by the rhythm of the seasons and menus driven by fine ingredients. Since arriving in the US in 1982, Boulud has become renowned for the contemporary appeal he adds to soulful cooking rooted in French tradition.

Daniel Boulud’s New York City restaurants include his flagship DANIEL (1993), a Michelin starred Relais & Châteaux member; the elegant one Michelin star Café Boulud (1998) with its adjacent cocktail bar, Bar Pleiades; his contemporary Parisian bistro, db bistro moderne (2001); two Upper West Siderestaurant including the charcuterie-centric Bar Boulud (2008) and the Mediterranean themed Boulud Sud (2011). DBGB Kitchen and Bar (2009), situated downtown on the corner of Bowery and Houston, is chef’s relaxed restaurant where the French brasserie meets the American Tavern. Épicerie Boulud (2011), with locations across from Lincoln Center and within The Plaza Food Halls, is an eat-in and take-out market and café, with exquisite homemade and gourmet items from around the world. Beyond Manhattan the chef has created Café Boulud in Palm Beach (2003) and db bistro moderne in downtown Miami, Florida (2010). Boulud has extended his culinary reach internationally with db bistro moderne at Singapore’s Marina Bay Sands (2010), Bar Boulud London (2010) at the Mandarin Oriental Hyde Park, Café Boulud at the Four Seasons Hotel Toronto (2012), and Maison Boulud at the Ritz-Carlton Montréal (2012). In spring 2014 the Chef returned to Las Vegas and opened db Brasserie in partnership with The Venetian® Las Vegas. Additionally, in September 2014 he opened a second DBGB at downtown Washington D.C.’s CityCenterDC, and Bar Boulud at Boston’s Mandarin Oriental.

Boulud’s culinary accolades include James Beard Foundation awards for “Outstanding Restaurant,” “Outstanding Restaurateur,” “Best Chef, New York City” and “Outstanding Chef of the Year.” He has been named “Chef of the Year” by the Culinary Institute of America and Chevalier de la Légion d’Honneur by the French government. Restaurant DANIEL has been cited as “one of the ten best restaurants in the world” by the International Herald Tribune, has earned multiple Michelin stars and Wine Spectator’s “Grand Award”. In 2015 the World’s 50 Best Restaurants awarded Boulud the Diners Club® Lifetime Achievement Award for his success as a restaurateur, businessman, and ‘chef who is revered as one of the world’s finest.’ Boulud’s culinary style is reflected in nine cookbooks, including the definitive DANIEL: My French Cuisine (Grand Central Publishing, 2013) and his most recent My Best: Daniel Boulud (Ducasse Books, 2014).

Interview with Gene Baur, President of Farm Sanctuary – 03.03.16

Gene Baur has been hailed as “the conscience of the food movement” by Time magazine. Since the mid-1980s, he has traveled extensively, campaigning to raise awareness about the abuses of industrialized factory farming and our system of cheap food production.

A pioneer in the field of undercover investigations, Gene has visited hundreds of farms, stockyards, and slaughterhouses, documenting the deplorable conditions that exist. His pictures and videos exposing factory farming cruelties have aired nationally and internationally, educating millions about the plight of modern farm animals.

Gene has also testified in courts and before local, state, and federal legislative bodies, advocating for better conditions for farm animals. His most important achievements include winning the first-ever cruelty conviction at a U.S. stockyard and introducing the first U.S. laws to prohibit cruel farming confinement methods in Florida, Arizona, and California. His efforts have been covered by top news organizations, including The New York Times, Los Angeles Times, Chicago Tribune, and The Wall Street Journal. Gene has published two bestsellers, Farm Sanctuary: Changing Hearts and Minds About Animals and Food (Scribner, 2008) and Living the Farm Sanctuary Life (Rodale, 2015), which he co-authored with Forks Over Knives author Gene Stone. Through his writing and his international speaking engagements, Gene provides simple actionable solutions coupled with a compassion-first approach to help us be the change we wish to see in treatment toward animals and in our food system.

Gene began his activist career selling veggie hotdogs out of a VW van at Grateful Dead concerts to fund farm animal rescues. Today, he serves as president of Farm Sanctuary, the nation’s leading farm animal protection organization, with shelters in New York and California. Providing rescue, refuge, and adoption for hundreds of farm animals each year, Farm Sanctuary shelters enable visitors to connect with farm animals as emotional, intelligent individuals. Gene believes these animals stand as ambassadors for the billions of factory farm animals who have no voice, and he has dedicated his career to advocating on their behalf.

Gene holds a bachelor’s degree in sociology from California State University, Northridge, and a master’s degree in agricultural economics from Cornell University. In 2015, Gene was granted an Associate appointment in Health, Behavior, and Society at Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health. In this prestigious position, Gene is focused on implementing courses related to evidence-based work on diet and farming as it aligns to Farm Sanctuary’s goals of shedding light on factory farming’s threat to public health, the environment and animal welfare.

Interview with Brett Tolley of Northwest Atlantic Marine Alliance and Slow Fish – 02.25.16

Brett Tolley is from a four-generation fishing family from Massachusetts. He is currently the Community Organizer for the Northwest Atlantic Marine Alliance, working at the intersection of marine conservation and social justice. He is on the board of directors for Farm to Institution New England (FINE) and serves on the core team helping to grow the Slow Fish USA network. He currently lives in Brooklyn, NY.

Interview with Michelle Schwegmann author of Eat Like You Give A Damn – 02.18.16

Michelle Schwegmann is co-owner of The Herbivore Clothing Company, a vegan clothing, cookbook and lifestyle brand based in Portland, Oregon. Founded in 2002, Herbivore designs and makes clothing and accessories for people who like to fashionably proclaim their compassionate beliefs. Tee shirts, hoodies, belts, wallets, bags, cookbooks, body care and more are at their store in the vegan-minimall, and online at herbivoreclothing.com.

Michelle and her husband Josh Hooten are the authors of Eat Like You Give a Damn, a cookbook and guide for new vegans. They are parents to ten-year-old Ruby, whose daily vegan lunch you can see via the hashtag #rubybirdslunch.