Who We Are
Canning Across America (CAA) is a nationwide, ad hoc collective of cooks, gardeners and food lovers committed to the revival of the lost art of “putting by” food. Our goal is to promote safe food preservation and the joys of community building through food. We believe in celebrating the bounty of local and seasonal produce and taking greater control of our food supply. Together, we can.
The Collective
Shauna James Ahern is the author of Gluten-Free Girl: How I Found the Food That Loves Me Back…And How You Can, Too, a food memoir, and the forthcoming narrative cookbook, In the Kitchen With the Chef (Wiley, 2010). She also writes the food website Gluten Free Girl, which was named 1 of the 50 best food blogs by The London Times, as well as Gourmet.com’s favorite food websites. She loves visiting farmers’ markets every week with her husband, Daniel Ahern (who is a professional chef) and their baby daughter. An overload of blueberries and peaches led to a fascination with canning and preserving. She has been making jams all summer.
Nicole Aloni is the author of 3 books about the art of cooking and entertaining: The Backyard Bartender, Secrets From A Caterer’s Kitchen, and Cooking for Company. Nicole makes frequent television appearances, including The Food Network, and locally for KOMO News. She also teaches cooking and entertaining across the country at schools like Sur La Table, Draeger’s, and Central Market and contributes articles to national magazines. Presently Nicole is focusing her attention on her blog, A Conscious Feast, which chronicles the development of her forthcoming book A Conscious Feast and other topics that catch her attention as she eats her way around the world. Prior to her writing career, Nicole completed the diploma course at La Varenne Ecole de Cuisine in Paris, owned her own restaurant, directed one of the country’s largest catering operations and produced a line of gourmet food products for fine grocers. You can find out more about Nicole at her website. She lives, cooks, and preserves in Seattle, WA.
Keren Brown has been organizing the Seattle Food Blogger events for the last two years. Every month she helps bloggers create lasting contacts and connections. Information about Keren’s food events can be found at Frantic Foodie. Keren is the founder of Foodportunity, a networking event for food industry professionals.
Rebekah Denn, journalist, is the winner of numerous awards for writing about food, including two James Beard Awards. She is the former food editor of the Seattle Post-Intelligencer newspaper. Her visits to farmers markets are usually the highlights of her week, and the experience is even better when it leads to more experiments with canning and preserving. She lives in Seattle with her husband and two young sons, all serious fans of jams and pickles. Rebekah is online Eat All About It.
Jenise Da Silva is passionate about cooking, gardening and the “farm to school” movement. Jenise’s experience with canning started when she was a kid in the Midwest and she continues that tradition today. She has used her experience in community building, marketing & brand management to create many award-winning projects including FireFree which was recognized with top honors (the Golden Smokey Award!) by the US Forest Service. She authored the book Women and Money and launched a national facilitated discussion series (years before Suzie Orman penned a book under the same name). Jenise is an avid supporter of community gardening and farmers markets and you can usually find her at Pike Place Market, in a PCC Cooks classroom, weeding in the Interbay P-Patch or on Thursday afternoons at the Queen Anne Farmers Market where she manages the Chef Demos and Events.
Crescent Dragonwagon is the James Beard Award-winning author of seven cookbooks, including Passionate Vegetarian, The Cornbread Gospels, and Dairy Hollow House Soup & Bread. But her second cookbook, way back in 1974, was Putting Up Stuff for the Cold Time, now out of print. (You can see she’s been canning, and writing, for quite awhile; fortunately she is, like her garden produce, well-preserved). When not gardening, writing (she is also the author of 29 children’s books, two novels, countless magazine articles and the blog Nothing is wasted on the writer), teaching (she is the developer of the Fearless Writing Workshops, which she teaches around the world) , she can usually be found in her kitchen. Her friends grovel for her green tomato mincemeat.
Stephanie Gailing a nutritionist and wellness consultant, is the author of Planetary Apothecary. As a natural health writer, she has covered whole foods, dietary supplements, and complementary medicine for numerous media outlets and has served as a writer/editor for The World’s Healthiest Foods website for the past nine years. Stephanie’s career in the natural health field has also encompassed operating her own eco-products retail store and serving as a nutrition education consultant for companies in the natural products industry. She holds a master’s degree in nutrition from Bastyr University.
Naomi W. Kakiuchi is the president and founder of NuCulinary, a registered dietitian, and a Certified Culinary Professional of the International Association of Culinary Professionals. She specializes in inspiring community and culture through cooking. She is a public speaker on food, nutrition and culinary topics; a media spokesperson; teaching chef and wellness educator and a popular corporate team building specialist using culinary tactics to achieve team synergies. Naomi conducts her own cooking school specializing in Asian cuisine and culture. NuCulinary provides interactive cooking classes for adults and children; corporate teambuilding; private parties and corporate wellness education. Naomi is the Executive Producer of a series of educational sushi DVD’s, The Art of Sushi, and is also a contributing author of The American Dietetic Association Cooking Healthy Across America Cookbook. Naomi also coordinates the Chef Program for the Seattle Neighborhood Farmers Market Alliance.
Leslie Kelly, a veteran food writer, is the former restaurant critic for the Seattle Post-Intelligencer. She’s currently working in kitchens around Seattle and chronicling her journey from pen to pan in a series called Critic-Turned-Cook. Her grandmother taught her to can pickles and peaches, but she’s still trying to get it right.
Shannon Kelly is a trend researcher and creative development consultant focused on retail, food & lifestyle industries. She’s passionate about understanding consumer culture and our continually evolving relationship with food as founder of In Your Head and CityStimulus™. Shannon started canning jams and pickling vegetables at 10 but has never executed the art without the assistance of the matriarchs in her family- until now. Her trend musings can be found at Trendscaping.com.
Lisa Kennelly is a writer and food lover based in Seattle. A former sports journalist, she currently is the Editorial Manager at LexBlog, a local web company that develops blogs for lawyers and law firms. She grew up in a family that has always valued cooking and gardening, and has fond memories of canning peaches and tomatoes as a kid. She blogs about eating and living in Seattle with her fiance at There’s a Hipster in My Latte.
The Lazy Locavores – Shannon and Jason Mullett-Bowlsby (aka The Shibaguyz) Co-authors of the lifestyle blog Here We Go, Life With The Shibaguyz, Shannon is a King County Master Gardener and Jason teaches classes in bread making, preserving the harvest, and cooking with local, seasonal foods. Together, they have launched their business The Lazy Locavores as edible gardening coaches & landscapers. Shannon & Jason teach heritage skills including cooking, preserving, sewing, knitting and crocheting. Both serve on the Board of Stewards for the Longfellow Creek Community Garden and are site coordinators for the Longfellow Creek P-Patch. Their most recent endeavor is the founding of the Urban Farming Project. Known for their irreverent take on life and gardening you can expect to be entertained as much as informed in any of their classes. They will be teaching canning basics for both water-bath and pressure canners; focusing heavily on food safety and nutritional concerns. Using tried and true recipes for the basics, they will educate and inspire you to “put up” the highest quality food while dispelling common myths and dangerous mistakes. “If we can do it, anyone can – can” Viva la Canvolution! Their new cookbook Cookin’ With The Shibaguyz is scheduled to be finished as soon as they get around to it and, although they have not won any awards with the word “Beard” in it, they both have beards… that counts… right?
Janine MacLachlan is a food writer, owner of The Rustic Kitchen cooking school. She teaches simple farmstand cooking to private groups at her weekend farm in the heart of Michigan’s orchard belt and is currently field-tripping across the Midwest researching a book about seasonal markets. She’s pretty proud of her blueberry basil jam.
Marisa McClellan is a writer, web producer and avid home canner. She does all her preserving from her tiny 20th floor apartment kitchen in the heart of Philadelphia, proving once and for all that no matter how small or urban the space, you can still fire up a canning pot. She teaches canning classes in and around Philly and often turns up on local morning shows, explaining the basics of home canning. Find her recipes, canning advice and more at Food In Jars.
Lucy Norris is an author and oral historian interested in food and cultural identity. She wrote Pickled: Preserving a World of Tastes and Traditions, a collection of stories and recipes that emerged from a three-year research project with the New York Food Museum. Lucy’s research helped launch the First Annual International Pickle Day in New York City in September 2001. She has taught multicultural pickling classes since 2000. She serves as volunteer co-chair of the Slow Food Seattle chapter and a member of Seattle Culinary Academy’s Technical Advisory Committee. She is a longtime member of the Association of the Study of Food and Society and Southern Foodways Alliance. Lucy has been featured in a variety of media outlets, including The New York Times, Food Network, NPR’s Morning Edition, Martha Stewart Living Radio, Saveur, Domino and more.
Kim O’Donnel is a trained cook, nationally recognized online food personality and a journalist with 15 years of experience. A former online food columnist at The Washington Post, Kim files edible dispatches at True/Slant and is currently at work on a meat-less guide for meat lovers.
Emily Paster is an adjunct law professor at Loyola University Chicago School of Law and a community leader active in Jewish and early childhood causes. She is a passionate home cook and a novice canner. Emily lives outside of Chicago with her husband and two children, or, as she likes to think of them, her sous-chefs.
Kim Ricketts is the founder of Kim Ricketts/Book Events, a company that connects people, stories and ideas: one book at a time. One of the most popular series created by Book Events is the Cooks & Books series: in the past 6 years we have shared over 100 dinners with the world’s most interesting food writers and chefs. At home, Kim is an energetic and enthusiastic home cook, and excited to jump into the fine art of canning and preserving.
Hope Sandler is a chef who is in high demand as a culinary educator, consultant, and cookbook author. An experienced professional chef and culinary industry authority, she teaches standing room only culinary education and wine appreciation courses throughout the United States and Canada. Her teaching area of expertise is in fundamental culinary technique and fine cuisine for the home chef.
Jeanne Sauvage is an enthusiastic cook, baker, mom, gardener, and information gleaner. She has a Ph.D. in theater theory, which is helpful in her never-ending hunt for new recipes, ideas, and concepts to ponder. She loves to can jams and pickles and enjoys using her preserved foods in the meals and baked goods she makes. One of her favorite things to do is to share food and convivial time with friends and family. She is also gluten-free, which has freed her from a life of processed food. Her blog is Four Chickens.
Traca Savadogo, known as the “matchmaker of food lovers,” is in hot pursuit of her passion–bringing people together for meaningful discussions around food. A 20-year veteran of the restaurant industry, Traca co-founded the world’s first International Food Blogger Conference. Summer 2009, she organized the Seattle film screening of End of the Line, which was followed by an expert panel discussion exploring sustainable seafood. During her tenure as the public relations manager for Chef Ethan Stowell, two-time James Beard Award nominee and Food & Wine Top 10 Best New Chefs in America, Traca discovered the direct correlation between land, farm, and table. Her adventures in food & travel can be found at Seattle Tall Poppy.
Noah Sheetz attended the Culinary Institute of America in Hyde Park, New York and in April of 2004, was hired as the Executive Chef of the Governor’s Mansion in Albany New York. As the Executive Chef at the Executive Mansion, Noah plans and supervises special events, private dinners, working luncheons, and neighborhood barbecues. In addition to his duties at the Mansion, Noah is involved in community outreach to educate youth in the community with healthy cooking presentations and interactive workshops that promote organic gardening and eating locally. Noah spends time networking with farms in the area to support and promote local agriculture and to increase awareness of the benefits of eating locally. He is currently attending graduate school at the University of Albany in Albany, New York.
Rachel Strawn works in web development and is a great lover of all things culinary. She’s always planning her next meal, enjoys working in the kitchen, and cherishes old & new cookbooks. While a novice at canning and preserving, she gardens and is looking forward to canning this year’s bounty. She writes at Rachel: Photo Diary and posts pictures on Flickr at Sally Simpleton.
Viv is a Seattle based photographer and the voice behind the multiple award-winning food blog Seattle Bon Vivant. She grew up in a food loving family with parents who kept a kitchen garden, cooked from scratch, ate at the dinner table together and instilled in her, from a very early age, a deep love for all things edible; cooking, baking, buying local, eating with the seasons, entertaining at home and putting food by. She’s been canning for over 15 years, sharing her preserves (pectin free, slow cooked in small batches) with family, friends and neighbors. You can find Viv online at her blog, on Flickr and on Twitter where she chronicles her adventures in food, wine, analog photography, travel and culture around Seattle and the world.
Tara Austen Weaver is a writer and editor whose work focuses on the topics of food and travel, culture and agriculture. She writes the award-winning food blog, Tea & Cookies, and her book, The Butcher & The Vegetarian: One Woman’s Romp Through A World of Men, Meat, and Moral Crisis, will be released Feb of 2010. Tara’s been canning since she was a teenager, with a serious addiction to pickles of all types, peach and blackberry jams, and Meyer Lemon marmalade.
Audra Wolfe is an independent science writer and editor based in Philadelphia. Originally trained as a chemist before getting a Ph.D. in history of science, she loves explaining the mechanics of pressure canning through the ideal gas law. Audra learned to can on her parents’ farm in Southern Indiana, where it was just something that everyone did. She blogs about her adventures in canning, pickling, fermenting, and dehydrating with her sister, an organic farmer, at Doris and Jilly Cook.
