Put A Fork In It!

About Ralph Erenzo Ralph brings 35 years of production and development experience to the distillery. Prior to starting Tuthilltown Spirits, his business ExtraVertical Inc. provided technical services to corporate and media clients for projects that required technical skills developed over his 25 year rock climbing career. Ralph built and managed New York City’s first public climbing gyms including The ExtraVertical Climbing Center on Broadway. His dream of a “climbers ranch” near the largest rock climbing area in the East were set aside in favor of producing high quality spirits. Ralph’s writing and commentary have been featured in national media including Op Ed columns for the New York Times. His work at the State level has resulted in the passage of the Farm Distillery Act which permits New York farms to establish distilleries on site and sell their agricultural spirits at the farm. Born and raised a New Yorker, he has realized a lifelong dream of settling in the Hudson Valley.   About Tuthilltown Bef

About Virginia Kasinki Virginia  is the Program Director for NUFFI, overseeing organizational development and community outreach.  Since 2015, she was the Outreach Coordinator for the Downing Park Urban Farm. Virginia was the former Director of Community-Based Programs at Glynwood and was responsible for Glynwood’s Keep Farming Program which is designed to help communities identify the many ways in which agriculture contributes to their wellbeing.  She has extensive experience with planning community-based programs and in training and coaching local leaders.  She is also an experienced meeting organizer and facilitator. Virginia is a Newburgh native.   About Liana Hoodes Liana is a Program Manager to NUFFI, coordinating programs and outreach. In 2017, she served as the program coordinator at the Downing Park Urban Farm. She has worked since 1994 on a wide range of organic/sustainable agriculture policy issues, and is currently the Policy Advisor to NOFA-NY.  Liana was the Execut

About Jamie Schler Jamie Schler writes stories inspired by food, culture, travel, and the real people she meets in real life, every day. Jamie has worked in the world of art in Philadelphia and New York, as a milliner in Milan, Italy, and gastronomic tourism in Paris. She now lives in Chinon, France where she owns and runs the Hôtel Diderot with her husband. An award-winning freelance writer, her work has appeared in The Art of Eating, Fine Cooking, France Magazine, Modern Farmer, Leite’s Culinaria, and The Kitchn among other publications. She blogs at Life’s a Feast and her first cookbook Oranges will be published by Gibbs Smith in the autumn of 2017. Jamie’s blog   About Hotel Diderot The building that now houses the hôtel Diderot goes back to the 15th century, and its history is entwined with that of the neighbouring Saint-Mexme collegiate church, as it probably housed one of its prelates. Before the hotel, a family of public servants – the Baillons –

About Celine Beitchman Celine Beitchman was an instructor, curriculum developer and director at the Natural Gourmet Institute for 10 years. She studied under the school’s founder, Annemarie Colbin, Ph.D., and is an expert in nutrition education for healthcare professionals, chefs and home cooks alike.   Chef Celine has prior experience as a private chef and in special events, catering, kitchen production, operations and management. She’s worked as a line cook, garde manger, food stylist and pastry chef, and appeared in Bon Appetit, Brit + Co, HuffPost and Mind Body Green as a health food expert. Chef Celine joined the Institute of Culinary Education in 2019 to teach Health-Supportive Culinary Arts career classes and coming professional development courses in culinary nutrition and food therapy. She has a master’s in clinical nutrition, a bachelor’s in film and a Level 3 wine certification from WSET. “I look at wine, food and nutrition as a continuum,̶

About Jen Herman, MSW, COO & Co-founder Jen previously worked as the Sexual Assault Response Team Coordinator in Dutchess County before co-founding Earth, Wind & Fuego in 2017. She received a Masters in Social Work at Adelphi University. Jen has worked and volunteered for human service agencies throughout Dutchess, Orange and Ulster counties and received the Asset Builder/Outstanding Youth Worker Award in 2015 from the Orange County Executive’s Youth Bureau Awards. She served as a commission member of the Dutchess County Human Rights Commission and volunteers with Poughkeepsie O+ and  Big Brothers Big Sisters of Orange County. As a poet and spoken word artist, Jen uses her writing and performance as a platform to shed light on systemic oppression and privilege, calling for unity among all people. She won the first ever Milkweed Poetry Slam in Sugar Loaf, NY, for her piece “Pulse” on the Orlando nightclub massacre. About Earth, Wind & Fuego Earth, Wind & Fuego is a social en

About Mary Mary Waldner was a practicing psychotherapist in the California Bay Area for 27 years before starting Mary’s Gone Crackers, the gluten-free, organic cracker and snack company and inadvertently becoming, “The Mary”. After having been sick most of her life, in 1994, she finally discovered what was wrong when she received a diagnosis: Celiac Disease. Always having had an interest in health and healthy foods, even before it was trendy, and especially with the added need from her new diagnosis, she saw a need for nutritious, gluten free options that also tasted good, both for herself, and eventually, in the marketplace. She literally began by experimenting in her kitchen, and eventually, after many iterations, trials and tribulations, she managed to get the crackers sold in grocery stores around the country. It wasn’t an easy journey, and she claims, not even fun, but as the Co-Founder, Co-CEO, Board Chair and often the only woman in the room, Mary certainly accomplished a lot by not sacrificin

About Ilana Ilana Charette is the lap band weight loss surgery coach. She teaches women how to trust themselves and their bodies again. Certified through The Life Coach School, Ilana is 32, married and a mother of 2. Ilana started Weight Watchers for the first time in middle school. She vowed to herself in high school that once she figured out this whole weight thing, she was going to devote her life to helping anyone who would listen with the same. At the age of 23 in 2010, and 292 lbs, she decided to have lap band bariatric surgery. She lost 60 lbs that first year and then slowly gained it all back, and then some, through her first pregnancy in 2015. Her weight had climbed to 320 lbs. It was when she became a new mom that she decided things needed to change. It was in that decision that self-love and compassion was introduced — losing weight in a way that she could live her life. She stopped ignoring her lap band and had it removed in 2017. She then maintained her weight throughout her 2nd pr

Regina Anderson joined the Food Recovery Network as the Executive Director in 2015 and is responsible for setting the vision, strategy and fundraising efforts for Food Recovery Network. Regina works with the amazing team at national headquarters, stakeholders and partners around the country to achieve ambitious goals. Overall, FRN’s goal is to support the higher education to be the first sector where food recovery is the norm and not the exception. But Regina won’t stop there. Businesses, events, public institutions also have a role in reducing food waste at the source. They also have a role to recover their surplus food and Regina wants to ensure they are integrated within the vibrant FRN network to make that happen. About FRN: Food Recovery Network is the largest student movement fighting food waste and hunger in America. In 2011, Ben, Mia, Cam, and Evan, students at the University of Maryland, College Park noticed good dining hall food was ending up in the trash at the end of the

  About Caroline Burnell: The Good Food Institute (GFI) Senior Marketing Manager Caroline Bushnell has a long-standing love of all things plant-based. Caroline is using that passion to help leading retailers and manufacturers expand their market for plant-based foods beyond vegans and vegetarians to include flexitarians and meat eaters. Prior to joining GFI, Caroline served as the Director of Marketing for Celestial Seasonings. With a background in brand management, finance, and consulting, she is intimately familiar with the challenges and opportunities of the food business. She brings this expertise to GFI where shes ushering in a new era of plant-based business opportunity, assisting companies in bringing plant-based products to a broader consumer base. About The Good Food Institute:   We work with scientists, investors, and entrepreneurs to make groundbreaking good food a reality. We focus on clean meat and plant-based alternatives to animal products—foods that are more d

About Anupama Joshi Anupama Joshi is the former Executive Director & Co-Founder of the National Farm to School Network. Ms. Joshi co-founded the organization in 2007, to serve as an information, advocacy, and networking hub for communities working to bring local food sourcing and food and agriculture education into school systems and early care and education sites. Ms. Joshi is a recognized leader in the field of farm to school, food justice and local and regional food systems. She is co-author of Food Justice (MIT Press, 2010) and led the development of “Evaluation for Transformation” – a pioneering cross-sectoral framework for farm to school research and evaluation. Ms. Joshi has been engaged with nutrition, agriculture and food systems issues in various countries around the world. She has worked with the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) of the United Nations, the Pesticide Action Network; and consulted with various non-profit organizations in Asia. She is a Steering Committee m