Guest Speakers | MW Culinary Wellness

A Week of CaLM

Here’s a week of CaLM Together. By the end of the 10 weeks you will:

Learn to look more deeply at the larger picture of a specific ingredient
Learn to cook more intuitively by the season of the year, and what can be found at the local market
Develop a deeper appreciation of the connections between mind, body, and food
Grow your recipe arsenal around plant-based cooking through virtual live demonstrations
Connect and grow with like-minded individuals of similar culinary interest
Feel you had a personal and meaningful time with Marti through her demonstrations, discussions and forums
Learn from other expert professionals in culinary and lifestyle medicine

Guest Speakers

Debra Fernandez, chair of the Dance Department at Skidmore College, joined the faculty in 1991 and has enjoyed a rich career as a choreographer and educator. She has created works for opera, theater, museum spaces, and the concert stage, and has proudly mentored hundreds of students who are living lives of creativity and purpose.

She is a long time yoga practitioner and teacher who has recently developed a system of training around the usage of yoga bolsters and the principles of ‘yielding’ and ‘pushing’. Through this partnership with the bolster the body connectivity is deepened, bringing a new awareness to the traditional yoga practice.

Debra is a firm believer that the body is a never ending training ground for creative discovery and spiritual growth. She is honored to be working with Marti!

Judi Friedman is a Yoga Teacher, a Yoga Therapist, and a student and teacher of meditation. She has been teaching since 2003. Prior to teaching yoga and meditation, Judi was a corporate attorney for 15 years. Her decades-long struggle with chronic pain underlies Judi’s deep belief that the ancient practices of yoga and meditation can be profoundly healing—physically, emotionally and spiritually. She teaches weekly group classes, workshops and private sessions in northern Westchester, and leads annual retreats to Menla Mountain Retreat. She brings both yoga and meditation practices to women with behavioral health issues by volunteer teaching for the Mental Health Association of Westchester. Judi is passionate about making yoga and meditation accessible, transformative, joyful and safe, for everyone— regardless of age, stiffness, injury or prior experience. Judi is certified to teach yoga by the Iyengar Association of the U.S., and is also certified in yoga therapeutics for injuries, chronic pain and other medical and emotional conditions by the International Association of Yoga Therapists. She is a long-time student of vipassana (insight) meditation, and regularly studies with Sharon Salzberg and other leading teachers. Judi also earned a J.D. from New York University School of Law.

Rebecca Katz grew up with a spatula in one hand and a paintbrush in another, among a family of artists and cooks. She received her first watercolors at age 5, when she also observed her mother and grandmother transforming mounds of brilliant vegetables into delicious, comforting soups. Rebecca blended the two together, as chef/author of 7 cookbooks and a painter. More than 20 years ago, she began a life of exploration, inspiration and healing through food and art, and offering that to the world of people in search of both.

Rebecca became a professional chef. She found her niche in food and healing. She played with flavor, color and texture to connect nutrition science to the plate, and pioneered an intelligent, novel and delicious use of food to promote health and wellness. Today, Rebecca finds making art and cooking creatively are both opportunities to be fully present in life, to pay attention to color, texture and composition. To be inspired by nature. To be so absorbed in tasks that time expands. Working in her kitchen or studio is an immersion experience, in a vibrant, reverent, tactile, visual world. Rebecca’s paintings can be found in private collections in the US and abroad.

Richard LaMarita has had a diverse culinary career. He has been a chef-instructor in the world - renowned plant - based program at the Natural Gourmet Institute, NYC, for 25 years. He now teaches in the Health Supportive Culinary Arts Program at the Institute of Culinary Education in New York City. His specialty along with vegetarian and vegan cooking is Indian, Italian and Ayurvedic Cuisine.

He is a graduate of the Institute of Culinary Education in New York City, having completed the Culinary Arts and Culinary Management Program in 2003 / 04. He has worked with numerous, well - known chefs in NYC, including Chef Floyd Cardoz, Dan Kluger and Ben Pollinger at Tabla Restaurant.

He has also combined his teaching career with being a private chef and private instructor in Manhattan and the Hamptons since 1995, working for numerous and notable families in NYC.

Richard has been a practitioner and teacher of Ayurveda, a science of life, health and balance, for 35 years. He has studied with Vedic and Ayurvedic master, Maharishi Mahesh Yogi and has led seminars on Ayurveda, including Ayurvedic Diet, Cooking, Yoga and Meditation throughout the U.S., and in Europe and Asia.

Allison Post is an Integrative Medicine Health Coach and Somatic Educator.

In a career spanning four decades she has taught courses in many modalities of massage, breath, and bodywork, and has helped many thousands of adults and children— with chronic illness, digestive discomfort, and physical challenges. She guides people through the transitions of pregnancy, birth, chronic stress, menopause, aging, grief and loss, and trauma arising from injury, surgery, and personal crisis. Her curiosity had led her to explore many disciplines, and she has pursued education in Asian and Western Bodywork, Chi Nei Tsang Internal Organ Massage, Visceral Manipulation, Acupuncture and Traditional Chinese Medicine, Ayurveda, Hypnotherapy, Dance, Somatic Psychology, and Craniosacral Therapy.

Her latest book, co-authored with her husband, is The Gut Wellness Guide: The Power of Breath, Touch, and Awareness to Reduce Stress, Aid Digestion, and Reclaim Whole-Body Health. The heart of Allison’s philosophy and practice is to help people gently sense in to the breath and the whole body, to tap into what she calls the inherent health—the capacity to heal, every moment of every day.

Drew Ramsey, MD @DrewRamseyMD is a psychiatrist, author, and farmer. His work focuses on clinical excellence, nutritional interventions and creative media. He is an assistant clinical professor of psychiatry at Columbia University College of Physicians and Surgeons and in active telemedicine clinical practice based in New York City.

His work has been featured by The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, Lancet Psychiatry, The Today Show, BBC, and NPR and he has given three TEDx talks. He is the co-author of the Antidepressant Food Scale and his e-courses on Nutritional Psychiatry education for the public and clinicians. His books Eat to Beat Depression and Anxiety (Harperwave 2021), Eat Complete, 50 Shades of Kale, and The Happiness Diet explore the connections between mental health and nutrition. He is on the Advisory Board at Men’s Health, the Editorial Board at Medscape Psychiatry, and is a member of the Well+Good Wellness Council.

He splits his time between New York City and Crawford County, Indiana where he lives with his wife and children on their organic farm and forest.

Stefanie Sacks, MS, CNS, CDN is a Culinary Nutritionist, educator, speaker, consultant and authority on eating to prevent and manage illness. For over two decades, she has helped transform the way people eat using hands on experiences to inspire, educate and offer practical tools for food lifestyle change. She has her Master of Science in Nutrition from Teachers College, Columbia University, is a Certified Nutrition Specialist, Certified Dietitian Nutritionist and is a graduate of the Natural Gourmet Institute for Health and Culinary Arts.

As a chef, nutritionist and innate healer she uses food as a conduit to deep transformation. She empowers people to eat and live to their full potential. Her book What The Fork Are You Eating (now available in audio) is a must-read guide for anyone looking to make small changes in food choice for optimal health.

Susan Thomson is an Australian qualified Naturopath with a passion for wholefood nutrition and herbal medicine. She combines a traditional naturopathic approach with current evidence based research, to create effective and personalised health solutions, that are both practical and sustainable.

In addition to her Naturopathic training, Susan has an honours degree in Evidence-Based Complementary Medicines and is currently completing a Masters of Human Nutrition through Deakin University. While living in New York, Susan trained as a Natural Foods Chef through the Natural Gourmet Institute and worked as a health-supportive Personal Chef, helping busy families reconnect with the healing qualities of real food and home cooking.

Susan currently practices as a Naturopath and Nutritionist in an integrative pharmacy in Sydney, Australia, where she lives with her family, including three young children. Through online consultations Susan also works one-one-one with clients all around the world, with a particular passion for women’s health and digestive health.

Kathleen Finlay, the President of Glynwood, has been a leader in the regenerative agriculture movement for most of her career. She has also been instrumental in organizing women who work for environmental progress.

In 2012, she became President of Glynwood, an organization at the forefront of the movement to promote local and regenerative agriculture, train young farmers and other food professionals to work within a thriving regional food system, and generally support food systems that promote personal and planetary health.

Previously, Kathleen was a Director of Harvard’s Center for Health and the Global Environment, where she developed and shaped programs to educate communities about the correlation between human health and the global environment; created a farm-friendly food policy for dining services; and produced a comprehensive online guide to nutritional, seasonal eating and cooking in the Northeast. She also co-founded the Harvard Community Garden, the University’s first garden dedicated solely to the production of food. She produced two award-winning documentaries (Once Upon a Tide and Healthy Humans, Healthy Oceans,) and co-authored the book, Sustainable Healthcare (Wiley, 2013).

Kathleen is also the founder of Pleiades, a membership organization working to advance women’s leadership in the sustainability movement.

Ms. Finlay holds a degree in Biology from UC Santa Cruz and a Master of Science in Science Journalism from Boston University. She has authored numerous reports and publications and acts as an advisor to various environmental and community organizations, including Congressman Sean Patrick Maloney’s Agricultural Advisory Board and Senator Kirsten Gillibrand’s Agricultural Working Group.