Leadership

International Green Tables Advisory Council

Co-Chairs
Lynn Fredericks
Lynn Fredericks is the founder and guiding force behind FamilyCook Productions a national, non-profit educational organization promoting community empowerment through programs providing nutrition, culinary, and food systems education. The author of, Cooking Time Is Family Time and an award-winning nutrition and culinary educator,, Ms. Fredericks and her team of chefs, dieticians and youth specialist create and train a spectrum of programs and curricula for pre-K through adult reaching tens of thousands of families since 1995. A leading public health advocate for holistic food system planning to address obesity and the loss of family farms, she is a founding member of Food Systems Network NYC and founding Chair of the Green Tables initiative of Les Dames d’Escoffier International. As the creator of the FamilyCook’s innovative youth development program, “Teen Battle Chef, Ms. Fredericks leadership has initiated partnerships with Dr. Oz’s HealthCorps and other key partners to inspire students to become change agents around health and nutrition within their school, family and beyond.
 
Linda Geren
Linda and her husband, Michael Mckay, own and operate High View Farm in North Hanover, NJ. The farm provides naturally and sustainably grown pork, lamb and goat meat as well as natural color yarn to local restaurants and markets. The farm is Animal Welfare Approved and participates in the National Resources Conservation Services grazing program. Linda spent 30 years in the food and beverage industry, working in every capacity from restaurant chef to district manager for large contract food services. She currently works as a sustainability consultant for Table Top Solutions, serves on the board of directors of Whole Earth Natural Foods Co-op and on the advisory committee for North East Sustainable Agriculture Research and Education. She is an active member of Slow Food, Pinelands Preservation Society and the New Jersey Farm Bureau. Linda has been the Green Tables co-chair of the Philadelphia chapter of Les Dames D’Escoffier for two years as well as serving on the International Green Tables advisory council for two years.

Advisory Council

Nancy Lutz
Senior Catering Consultant Fittingly, senior catering consultant Nancy Lutz approaches her work at Affairs to Remember as a conductor would a symphony, “blending various elements, tastes and visual effects into one harmonious celebration.” With more than 30 years of industry experience and a specialty in entertaining, Lutz’s attention to detail to the entire “score” of catering and event planning has ensured for countless clients that the harmonies created resonate long afterward. Affairs to Remember is an established company that creates events in both the social and corporate world with a passion for food, event design, logistics and event planning. Lutz joined Affairs to Remember Caterers in 2003, bringing with her a dedication to culinary arts and entertaining rooted in family tradition. She received early training with the Ritz-Carlton, later joining other esteemed off-premise caterers in the late 1980s. She then opened her own company, Food Glorious Food, building it from “scratch” which she sold in the late 1990s to become a full-time industry consultant. In addition to her duties at Affairs to Remember, Lutz extends her knowledge as an entertaining instructor, leading popular classes such as “The Art of Entertaining.” Lutz resides in Marietta with her husband and two sons, where she enjoys decorating, gardening – and naturally, cooking and home entertaining.

Drew Spangler Faulkner
Chef, cooking teacher, and journalist: Drew began her culinary career in Newton Centre, MA with Madeleine Kamman studying French and Italian cuisines. Since then she has traveled the world studying various cuisines. Today her energy is focused on writing and teaching. Her most recent writing has been published in Farming Magazine and on her blog, Cooking with Drew.com. She currently teaches at L’Academie de Cuisine in Bethesda, MD.


Janice Yap
Janice Yap teaches 6th, 7th and 8th grade Home Economics at Punahou School in Honolulu. She introduces students to world cultures, history and geography via their taste buds and palates in addition to nutrition, food science, basic food prep, safety and sanitation. Students help in the home economics kitchen garden and Earthbox containers planting a variety of herbs, vegetables, taro and citrus trees. She has a passion for studying about world cultures and spends her summers traveling abroad on professional development fellowships. All of which is shared with her students and colleagues.



Dr. Millie Mattfeldt-Beman
Millie is Professor and Chair of the Department of Nutrition and Dietetics at Saint Louis University (SLU). She received her Ph.D. from SLU with a research emphasis in preventive cardiology. She was Co-PI on a NIH clinical trial – Trials of Hypertension Prevention. PI for a USDA Community Food Project Grant “Gardens to Tables”, she established school gardens and nutrition curriculum at seven inner city schools and a teaching garden at SLU. She is currently the PI for a Missouri Foundation for Health grant – Healthy Eating with Local Produce (HELP) – to develop a food processing center to bring local food into the school lunch program, including a training component for high school students and a program to develop and market value-added products. She also received grants to establish Start to Actively Recycle Today – a grant to convert solid food waste into compost/castings for garden operations; Farm Connections - a grant to establish a farmers market for a public health clinic and gardens at an East St. Louis elementary school and housing authority; and Monsanto Gardens to Tables – a grant to develop gardens for children with disabilities. Dr. Mattfeldt-Beman established the culinary emphasis at SLU, receiving the Mary Abbott Hess Award for Innovations in Culinary Education from the American Dietetic Association. The Department has been operating Fresh Gatherings Café, a model for sustainable cuisine within an institutional environment since September, 2004. The menus are developed from local and seasonal produce and livestock and serves as a learning laboratory for the department. The HELP Food Innovation Center provides a shared use kitchen to the community. As a member of Les Dames d’Escoffier, Dr. Mattfeldt-Beman established the Recipes from Home contest as a mechanism to get family favorite recipes for local produce into school lunch programs, established a Gardens to Tables Farmers Market event for area youth – tour and cooking lesson, and hosted a Food Day event for approximately 200 college students.

Cecilia Nasti
Born into an Italian-American family, Cecilia Nasti had little choice but to love food. An organic vegetable gardener and cook on her mother’s side, Cecilia promotes locally produced food, cooking from the garden, and shares the love with friends she’s yet to meet at www.fieldandfeast.com, KUT 90.5 FM, and various publications.