A Growing Team at Growing Chefs - Welcome Madi!

AMANDA LEFT BIG SHOES TO FILL DURING HER PARENTAL LEAVE, BUT WE FOUND SOMEONE WITH PERFECTly SIZED FEET. WELCOME TO THE TEAM MADI!

Hi! My name is Madi (she/her), and I’m really excited to be working with Growing Chefs in my role as interim Co-Executive Director, Programs & Operations. I’m joining the team as a white settler based on Lək̓ʷəŋən lands where I’ve been entangled in local food for the last seven years. My days in the dirt started as a youth in the juicy berry fields of Ka’tarokwi on Anishinaabe and Haudenosaunee lands and I’ve been grateful for all the tired, full, and silly moments growing food ever since. 

For me, food is connected to everything I hold close. I love the slowness of knowing my neighborhood farmer, butcher, and cheesemaker; the feeling of deep care and connection in the queer farming community; witnessing my nephew drool mid-moose meat indulgence; memories of suffering with pals through 6:00am rainy harvests; and the vastness of knowledge and culturally rich story-telling weaved throughout our communities. 

I feel drawn to this work for the ways that it allows me to move with slow and ongoing curiosity. The more people I meet and ingredients I taste, the more my eyes widen to the essence of good food. With an understanding that our food system is inseparable from broader social structures— for me, good food asks us to envision worlds that honour people– our relationships and responsibilities to each other and place. In any case, it’s the simple question of what goes unseen before those delicious shisto peppers make it into my belly that keeps me moving in my own processes of undoing disconnection from food, land, and collective.

I hope this all goes to say— I’m grateful for the opportunity to support the vision that Growing Chefs, our partners, and communities have been tirelessly working on to create possibilities for a more just and accessible food system. It reminds me of all the caring, imaginative, and skilled people in my life who time and time again show me what is possible when we orient towards collective abundance. 

A Growing Team at Growing Chefs - Welcome Kat!

I inherited my love of all things green and leafy from my mother, whose passion for dirt, moss, and snails is unsurpassed. She had me out in the yard growing strawberries and zucchinis, and pulling great clumps of potatoes from the ground. I loved eating the fruit right off the plant and helping her wash the mud from our haul. Some of my best memories from childhood centre around the kitchen baking or cooking something delicious with my mom. I am grateful for the gift of knowing how to prepare healthy food inexpensively, especially now as the world continues to change around us and make food security and sustainability more prevalent concerns.

I am also grateful to have grown up on the west coast of BC, which is just so beautiful, but also has a lengthy growing season! I spent several years in Toronto, and while it had many amazing benefits, the long winters and harsh summers were hard to get used to. I tried several times to plant a few pots, but they never survived the extreme August heat. I love that here in Vancouver I can start to see little sprouts popping out of the ground as early as mid-February, and that they will happily keep growing with little maintenance until Halloween.

When I'm not out enjoying the lushness of my neighbourhood I spend my time writing, performing, and producing music. My grandfathers on both sides were noted audiophiles, and with a brother in radio it seems destined that I would also follow the path to music. I've been singing since I could talk, and writing my own songs since I was 14. Most recently, I released my first single with a UK-based indie label and with an album due out this fall, I am
excited for what the future holds.

Fun Fact: I have 14 cat mugs.

A BIG GROWING CHEFS WELCOME TO OUR NEWEST TEAM MEMBER! WE’RE SO LUCKY TO HAVE YOU KAT!

My name is Kat Morrow and I'm thrilled to be joining the lovely team at Growing Chefs as the Communications and Engagement Assistant. I strongly believe that the divide between the food on our plates and our understanding of the places it comes from have deepened greatly over the past 100 years. I'm excited to be part of an organization that is striving to bridge that gap and helps current and future generations understand food production and sustainability. The more we investigate and comprehend where our food is coming from the more equipped we are to make better decisions for ourselves, our families, and our communities.

I became interested in the path of seed to produce at a young age. Although my adult life has kept me in cities with no yard to harvest, I have always managed to fill a container or two with herbs, beans, lettuce, and even the occasional tomato. I also enjoy cooking and there is so much pride in eating something you've grown with your own hands. The end product always seems to taste better.

A Growing Team at Growing Chefs - Welcome Julia!

A GIANT GROWING CHEFS WELCOME TO OUR NEWEST STAFF MEMBER! WELCOME TO THE TEAM, JULIA!

Hi there! My name is Julia and I couldn’t be more excited to join the Growing Chefs team as their Communications Assistant.

I feel like my life has always revolved around food. I’m from Brazil and we’re known to be great cooks, family-oriented, and chatty people. I don’t want to put every Brazilian person in the same bag, but that’s exactly how my family has raised me to be.

I have spent a lot of time in the kitchen since I was a teeny tiny Julia. Every Sunday my family would gather for lunch at my grandmother’s place. I would arrive early in the morning, and all of our aunts would cook together. I remember placing a chair close to the sink so I could stand up and help my grandmother as she cooked delicious gnocchi for the whole family - I remember eating raw pasta too. We spent hours and hours talking at the table as we ate and drank freshly squeezed lemon juice. I also remember rolling brigadeiros with my family with my tiny hands. We always celebrate our birthdays with homemade food and handmade party decorations.

Me and my mother prepping for one of our many family barbecues.

As I grew, I noticed that food was something that brought my family together. I was always keen to help my father - a very patient man - to prepare our barbecues. It was a very special moment when I was finally old enough to cook my first rice. I was nine years old and I remember feeling proud and accomplished after cutting onions and garlic, frying them, and smelling the amazing spices after adding water to the pan. This is a smell that most Brazilians grow to love.

My grandmother and I. I wish that I had a picture of us cooking together.

Cooking has always been that one self-care act that I took very seriously. I grew up as a semi-professional swimmer. I spent a lot of energy - and vitamins - practicing from Monday to Saturday for 3 hours per day. I began my swimming career when I was six years old, and I would travel around Brazil competing with kids who had practiced just as much as me.

When I was around nine, we found out that I wasn’t getting enough vitamins into my diet, because I was spending too much energy swimming! That’s when my mother started taking meal planning very seriously. She was the person who supported me all the way from taking me to swimming practice to planning every piece of food that I’d put into my mouth. I woke up every morning with a slice of whole-grain bread with requeijão, half papaya with oat, two Brazilian nuts, two cashews, and two walnuts. That’s precisely what my body needed to grow healthier and perform better.

My parents and I after I won a medal.

After going to the nutritionist once a month for years and years, I grew up taking food planning very seriously. I’ve always been the person who spends two hours of my Sunday night prepping my meals for the week, and I do that until today.

My journey with Growing Chefs started in 2019, when I volunteered for the first time. Eating healthy food was crucial for me, and I was amazed to see that the work that Growing Chefs does was exactly what I needed when I was young.

When I’m not working, I’m usually taking my dog, Shuri, for a walk at the park, lake, or at the beach. I also love spending time with my partner watching TV shows, and reading a good book to start my day.

Introducing Growing Chefs' New Executive Director: Kara-Leigh Bloch

Photo Credit: Mavreen David Photography

Growing Chefs’ friends and family:

HAPPY HEALTHY 2021 to all! My name is Kara-Leigh Bloch and I have the honour to be the new Growing Chefs’ Executive Director. I am very excited to get to work with an amazing and inspiring group of staff, board members, volunteers, and their supportive partners, along with funders and collaborators. I have a deep respect and appreciation for local farmers and producers, chefs and restaurateurs, all who take pride in fresh, local, sustainable foods. Together, we will continue to connect chefs, kids, and communities, and promote healthy, just, sustainable food practices. 

Originally from Edmonton, I grew up playing competitive women’s hockey and 10 pin bowling. I studied Human Ecology at the University of Alberta (Bachelor of Education and Bachelor of Science) where we used an interdisciplinary and holistic approach to examine the many contexts of people’s lives. In particular, my focus was on the inter-relationships people have with their near environments: family, community, and environment. While completing my double degree, I spent a semester abroad at a sister school in Lille, France. This was the beginning of my love of exploring new places, food, and culture.

France changed my personal motto from “eat to live” to “LIVE TO EAT”. I jumped at the opportunity to live in a rural community with a host family that had two small children. My favourite memories are going to the Sunday marché, then making a big pot of soup with all the previous week’s leftover vegetables and enjoying it with a fresh baguette and some cheese. They crafted such impressive meals and exposed me to the French cuisine and the French way of life. When I tried my first freshly steamed artichoke (thinking they only came in a jar), it immediately became one of my favourite foods. My appreciation, relationship with, and my love of fresh local food deepened. After I graduated, I worked with the University of Alberta in Research on Aging Policy and Practice, then moved to Dominica/Grenada in the Caribbean to work with Help the Aged Canada as a Seniors Outreach Worker. Eventually in 2008, I settled in Vancouver to live in the same city as my now husband. By this time I was lucky enough to have lived in Montreal, Toronto, France, Dominica and travelled through Europe and Asia, and many other parts of the world!

It’s crazy to calculate it but I have been working in the non-profit sector for 20 years, mostly in senior housing and the homelessness sector.  Most recently, I spent 11 years at Seniors Services Society of BC, 9 of those years as the Executive Director. 

I have two daughters (four and six years old), and the sweetest furbaby, Kobe, a labradoodle. Over the last few years, I started to shift my focus and priorities, and decided to redirect my career in an equally meaningful sector to me: food security and community development.

I love food and wine, cooking, entertaining, and may have picked up the nicknames of “snack queen” or “Charcuterie Kara”. Since moving to Vancouver, I always say living here is like being on permanent vacation. The food and the activities around the city, from sea to sky, is the full meal deal. 

My plan for the next few months as I onboard with Growing Chefs is to listen, to learn, and to take small meaningful steps through collaborating both inside and outside the food sector. Food connects us all. I see there is considerable opportunity to join forces with other social justice movements to dig into and address power imbalances and inequality and move towards food justice. I strongly believe that we need creative collective action to ensure that this new generation of kids learn to have healthy connections with food and understand its connectedness to our environment.

That’s it for now, I hope to meet you all at some point whether it be virtually or at long-awaited in-person gatherings when the time comes! We will have lots to celebrate! 

Yours in community,
Kara-Leigh

Welcome, Darian!

Hello! I’m Darian Leung, and I’m lucky to be joining Growing Chefs during these unprecedented times as a student intern. Food is inseparable to my life, as it is one of my primary sources of joy, fulfilment, and connection to others. By utilizing food as a catalyst to my personal growth, this interconnected building block makes me excited to be working with Growing Chefs, as I can educate and reconnect communities through food literacy and healthy eating initiatives.

Frankly, I am not shy about cooking and the culinary scene. Before deciding to study Human Resource Management at York University, I wanted to be a chef and food educator. With ties to the culinary arts, I never gave up my passion and interest in cooking. I even worked at a seafood restaurant in the West End of Vancouver as a prep cook for two months to gain a new perspective as a chef, and to keep my food skills and knowledge fresh. Although adventurous with my cooking, I remain grounded in experimenting with Asian cuisine due to comfort and familiarity. I like to relay back to my culture as the main focus and inspiration to my food creations. As long as I can make good food and share it with others, food origins are not strict and vital to me, since my ultimate goal is to unite people with my food! I believe food is a universal language meant to create new relationships and memories, which I strive to foster within my projects when thinking about food accessibility issues in a communal context. 

My internship with Growing Chefs is through the work placement component of the Roots & Shoots Program at the Environmental Youth Alliance this summer. Through the initial land-based part of this internship, I learned and embraced a more inclusive and adaptive mentality as I worked and collaborated with peers and community partners in the East Vancouver area. I became immersed in environmental knowledge and cultural teachings such as harvesting, processing, landscaping, and other horticultural mediums of Indigenous Peoples. This uplifting work experience at EYA allowed me to see a bigger picture outside of colonialistic beliefs. If my nerves die down, I would be thrilled to design an interactive lesson plan and workshop encompassing my Asian background or Indigenous based plant practices learnt from EYA to encourage new food wisdom and diversity in the Growing Chefs community. 

Besides eating and cooking new food, you can find me sheltered away behind the computer screens watching food review vlogs on Youtube, and spending time with my sister’s cats, Luna and Nova. 

A Growing Team at Growing Chefs! – Introducing Farah

Hello! My name is Farah, and I am so excited to be working with Growing Chefs! as the new Fundraising and Operations Assistant. If there’s one thing I love, it’s food! Whether growing, harvesting, cooking, or educating, I love engaging with food in all its stages (although I’m admittedly better in some areas than others!). Joining the Growing Chefs! team was a no-brainer for me as it combines all my passions into one!

What initially sparked my interest in the food movement was my love for animals and the environment. In my extremely large extended family I was dubbed “the hippie”, and whilst everyone else was more interested in materialistic items, I was always the one in the dirt and chasing after dogs. Growing up as a first generation Canadian in Toronto, a city with many food deserts, food security and social justice issues became huge interests of mine. I even became a vegetarian at the age of thirteen after learning about factory farming, and this all started my quest in advocating for more just food systems.

Despite this, it actually took me many years to appreciate my family’s amazing cooking or being in the kitchen. Growing up in a household that experienced generations of displacement and colonialism, there was always this battle between retaining culture and adopting Western values. I constantly pushed away from my heritage; so much so when I moved out of my parents house I worked at two restaurants so I wouldn’t have to cook! It wasn’t until I developed an autoimmune condition and started reconnecting with my family roots, that my passion for connecting people with the communal and cultural components of food really sparked.

So what brought me to Vancouver? Many years ago I got bit by the travel bug when pursuing my undergraduate degree in Environmental Studies. A backpacking trip around Europe, and an internship in Tanzania, inspired me to keep moving. I spent time working for various non-profits, research projects and social enterprises relating to sustainability and food security. Whilst managing a permaculture farm and education centre in Nicaragua, I met an incredible R.H.N who had recently graduated from a Holistic Nutrition program in Vancouver. I had already been self-studying nutrition, and her knowledge inspired me to move here for school a year and a half ago. Little did I know, this seemingly small encounter would spark a huge change; finally settling down the wanderer in me. To this day, I am constantly blown away by all the amazing organizations in Vancouver and feel very fortunate to be in a city with so many people working towards creating accessible food systems.

Apart from food and nerding out on nutrition, I also love yoga and Ayurveda. I have completed two 200-hour YTT’s and in the process of finishing up a 300-hour training. When I’m not on the mat, staining my roommate’s kitchen utensils with turmeric or behind a book, you can find me out in nature, enjoying the beautiful sunsets, beaches and mountain views Vancouver has to offer!

A Growing Team at Growing Chefs! – Introducing Cayley

Hi! My name is Cayley, and I’m stoked to be working at Growing Chefs! as the new Program and Operations Assistant! While it was my combined love for food and teaching that drew me to the organization, the Growing Chefs! staff, volunteers, teachers, and children are what keep me excited to come back each day. It’s awesome to be able to help make food literacy more mainstream in childhood education, alongside all of these superstars!

My love for delicious food began at a young age, and came full circle through a litany of weird and wonderful experiences. It began while “helping” my grandparents in their garden in rural Alberta. I like to think I was an indispensable asset, but I likely only assisted with making all the berries disappear… before they made it into any pies! The only vegetables I ate without complaint were from that garden; harvesting them right from the plant somehow made them much more interesting and delicious. Mom and Grandma, who are still my two favourite cooks, eventually taught me that vegetables maybe weren’t the worst thing in the world – they showed me that with the proper skills and ingredients, I could turn them into healthy, delicious meals!

After finishing university, I had a severe case of wanderlust, so I began brainstorming ways that I could combine skills and passions while seeing the world. Teaching and a fascination with the ocean took me to Southeast Asia to teach scuba diving. Everywhere I went, food was my comfort zone. I found it was the best way to learn about new cultures and customs, and to get involved with local communities. I learned about so many spices and flavours, some of which I’m certain I’ll never find again… my quest for a delightful bulb-shaped crunchy white vegetable that I found in a Chinese stir-fry is ongoing, nine years later (any information relating to this appreciated – and no, it isn’t any standard onion!).

I eventually ended up in the Caribbean, where I was fortunate to spend a couple years aboard sailboats, teaching youth how to scuba dive and sail. I was (and still am!) amazed at how much young people were able to connect to new concepts through tactile learning. Experiential education enabled students to really engage with the material… “doing the things” allowed different students with a huge variety of learning styles to actively achieve all sorts of awesome milestones! I also met my partner, Jack, while doing this, and he was more than willing to keep up the adventurous lifestyle.

Through a series of chance meetings and opportunities, we were hired onto a charter sailboat, where I was a chef tasked with cooking food for people as they joined the yacht for their vacations. It was a valuable experience to reconnect with the kitchen, and great to finally join a whole bunch of my interests. After a couple of years, though, I really missed the reward that came with teaching. I decided to come back to Canada and pursue a Masters of Environmental Education and Communication, to further explore opportunities for unconventional learning experiences. Through this program, I was lucky to be introduced to Growing Chefs!

My time at Growing Chefs! so far has ticked all the boxes. Watching the faces of children and volunteers light up as they learn, or teach, how to grow a garden from seed while getting their hands in the soil is beautiful. I’m feeling very fortunate to be able to help out however I can.

Outside of work and school, I spend a lot of time adventuring with my dog, Oso, and trying to take full advantage of all that dry, steady land has to offer. I run, ski, and cycle every chance I get, but am otherwise usually finding excuses to be in the kitchen. Lately I’ve been on a sourdough kick, testing out my hypothesis that it’s impossible to grow tired of freshly baked bread. No conclusive results yet - I’ll keep trying!