her deal

Cynthia's TEDx Rainier Talk
How to Cut an Onion

Cynthia shares a stirring tale about the unexpected benefits of mindful cooking.

New Stuff
Completely whimsically-illustrated revised edition of Feeding the Young Athlete has arrived! Order here. Less than ten bucks - it's a steal.

Upcoming talks & appearances:
January 5, 2-3pm, Whole Foods Interbay, booksigning
January 12, 10 a.m. to noon, PCC Greenlake
January 20, 1 to 3 p.m., PCC Redmond
February 2nd, Community Fitness, 2pm
February 7th, Book Larder, 6:30 pm
February 10, 1 to 3 p.m., PCC Edmonds
February 13, 12am- 2pm, Whole Foods Bellevue, booksigning
February 23, 3 to 5 p.m., PCC West Seattle
March 10, 1 to 3 p.m., PCC Issaquah
April 2, Eats4Health, Shoreline, WA, Mindful Cooking
April 3, 2:00 pm, Nutrition First, Raising Healthy Eaters

Cooking Outside the Box video series for Full Circle Farms are posted  here - some really nice recipes.

The Bio
It wasn't always food and cooking. As a child all I wanted to do was perform, act.  I loved the immediacy of the art form and had no self-consciousness about speaking in front of people.  After majoring in theater and a year of apprenticing I moved to NYC for over a dozen years – performing in television commercials, summer theater, showcases.  In the mid-80's my mother's struggle with cancer pushed me to study alternative healing therapies. I made a decision to return to school to study nutrition and food. I paid for going  to school to become a Certified Health and Nutrition Counselor with money earned acting which is pretty funny.

After moving to Seattle, the TV, radio and theater work continued while I wrote my first cookbook, and began teaching nutrition and cooking classes at Bastyr University.  Currently I am an assistant professor for Bastyr University's School of Nutrition and Exercise Science (faculty member since 1994) and the Culinary Curriculum Director for their new Culinary Arts degree program. 

My cookbook, Feeding the Whole Family (Sasquatch Books, 2008) is in its third edition and over 77,000 copies have been sold.  A fully revised good-looking edition of my second book, Feeding the Young Athlete: Sports Nutrition Made Easy for Players, Parents and Coaches, will be released this fall.  Yee haw.

I finally morphed the acting, the cooking and the nutrition together in 2008 with the birth of the online cooking show Cookus Interruptus.  In over 160 videos, me and my colleagues from The Edge Improv group twist healthy cooking instruction and the family sit-com genre into educational entertainment. Watch at  www.cookusinterruptus.com.

In 2010 I was lucky to be hired by the Auburn School District grant to develop the curriculum for an 8-hour workshop to train school food service workers in the how and why of whole foods cooking.  The workshops were are part of the CDC's Communities Putting Prevention to Work(CPPW) program.  To watch a mini-documentary  about this project click here.

It drives me nuts that we don't feed our children better and this irritation drives most of what I do with my life.  That and the belief the everything is better with a little humor added.