Naomi Starkman

Naomi Starkman

Naomi Starkman is a Founder and the Editor-in-Chief of Civil Eats. She is a food policy consultant to Consumers Union and others, as well as a founding board member and the Strategic Communications Advisor to the Food & Environment Reporting Network. Naomi served as the Director of Communications & Policy at Slow Food Nation ’08 and has worked as a media consultant at The New Yorker, Vanity Fair, GQ and WIRED magazines. She was previously a senior publicist at Newsweek magazine and was the Director of Communications for the American Foundation for AIDS Research (amfAR). After graduating from law school, she served as the Deputy Executive Director of the City of San Francisco’s Ethics Commission. Naomi works with various clients on food policy and advocacy and is an avid organic gardener, having worked on several farms.  

Meatless Mecca Real Food Daily Cooks up Vegan Family Meals

By on June 14, 2011

Ann Gentry is the creator and founder of Real Food Daily (RFD), a mecca for organic, vegan cuisine in Los Angeles, where she and her staff serve up delicious, plant-based food to celeb devotees including Alicia Silverstone, Ellen DeGeneres, and Conan O’Brien. The executive chef to Vegetarian Times magazine, and star of her own cooking show, Naturally Delicious, Gentry is also the author of The Real Food Daily Cook Book. Her new cookbook, Vegan Family Meals: Real Food For Everyone, just out this week, offers more than 100 tasty recipes. I recently had the pleasure of speaking with Gentry about cooking for families, raising children vegetarian, and why she believes in feeding people whole, natural food.   Read more

Super Natural Star: Heidi Swanson’s New Cookbook is Stellar

By on April 22, 2011

Heidi Swanson, natural foods super star, is a cookbook author, whose writing, projects, and photographs have been featured in dozens of magazines. Her first cookbook, Super Natural Cooking, was nominated for a James Beard Award and is widely lauded as the best introduction to natural foods cooking today. Swanson’s online recipe journal, 101Cookbooks, has been the recipient of many awards, and draws a huge audience every month. Her latest mouthwatering and artful book, Super Natural Every Day, is hot off the presses and is equally inspired by whole foods and natural ingredients. I spoke with Swanson recently about the evolution of her cooking, how living in San Francisco inspires her, and where she eats when she’s not busy in her own kitchen. Read more

Kitchen Table Talks: Next Gen Food Activists

By on April 20, 2011

Food is the pulse of the millennial generation as thousands of young people are propelling the new good food movement forward by planting the seeds of a more just and sustainable food system. Across the country, students are activating for social change on campuses, while hundreds of new farmers and gardeners are digging into neighborhoods, and innovative food ventures are sprouting up. Come meet some of the best and brightest of these young food activists on Tuesday, May 3, as Kitchen Table Talks, in conjunction with UC Berkeley’s School of Journalism, hosts a lively discussion with some of the leading youth voices whose mandate is food. Read more

Milky Whey: Following the Sonoma Marin Cheese Trail

By on March 24, 2011

Sonoma and Marin counties—the Normandy of Northern California—are home to the most artisan cheesemakers in California, if not the country. The foggy, grassy north boasts some 22,000 acres of land dedicated to making cheese and fermented milk products. To celebrate this bounty, the Marin Economic Forum (MEF) just introduced the Sonoma Marin Cheese Trail map [PDF], the first-ever guide to local artisan cheesemakers.

Launched just in time for the fifth annual Artisan Cheese Festival, taking place this weekend in Petaluma, the colorful, informative map raises the profile of local cheesemakers, an important element of our vibrant local agricultural economy. Artisan cheesemaking is experiencing a renaissance as both long-time dairy families and new cheese entrepreneurs are milking the trend. The Cheese Trail map includes some outstanding local dairies, such as Bellwether Farms, Pug’s Leap, Redwood Hill Farm & Creamery, and Saint Benoît Yogurt. Read more

A Cup of Gold: Equator Coffee Sets the Bar for Sustainable and Socially Just Coffee

By on March 14, 2011

Equator’s hyper-efficient smart coffee roaster burns 80 percent less natural gas than a traditional coffee roaster.

On a recent trip to Africa, I was fortunate to visit several coffee farms and meet the local growers. The work is grueling, the market unpredictable, and the direct rewards minimal in light of the $80 billion coffee trade, in which most farmers around the world earn three cents for a $3 cup of coffee. Overly caffeinated San Francisco, aflutter with buzz about new cafés and roasters, is ground zero for the current coffee craze. But I wondered, while walking through the coffee fields and talking with the workers, (many of whom earn roughly $2 a day), if most folks here also make the connection to the global implications of their morning Joe. Read more

Plant to Palate: From Seed to Skillet (VIDEO)

By on December 21, 2010

Named one of Amazon’s Top 10 Best Home & Garden books for 2010, From Seed to Skillet: A Guide to Growing, Tending, Harvesting, and Cooking Up Fresh, Healthful Food to Share with People You Love takes your hand and walks you down the garden path and into the kitchen. Authors Susan Heeger and Jimmy Williams closely link the wonder of home growing with the pleasure of home cooking and offer up dozens of practical gardening tips alongside a feast of delicious recipes. Read more

College Food That’s Good: USF’s Market Cafe

By on December 10, 2010

President Obama, recently speaking to students of his undergraduate alma mater, Columbia University, noted that, “Food at the cafeteria was notoriously bad. I didn’t have a lot of options. We used to joke about what was for lunch that day, and there would be a bunch of nondescript stuff that wasn’t particularly edible.” The next time POTUS is in town, I hope he stops by The Market Café at the University of San Francisco (USF) since cafeteria food has changed a whole lot since back in the day. And it’s not just for students: The Market Café is open to the public. Read more

Cooking With Italian Grandmothers: A Conversation With Jessica Theroux

By on October 22, 2010

Bay Area chef and teacher, Jessica Theroux spent a year traveling throughout Italy, cooking and talking with Italian grandmothers from whom she learned the true art of food, family, and love. Her new cookbook/travelogue, Cooking with Italian Grandmothers, features over 100 delicious recipes, stunning photography, and the poignant stories of 12 grandmothers from nine regions, each of whom welcomed Theroux into her kitchen to share their wisdom and a soulful meal. Along the way, she meets Armida in Lunigiana and her Pasta di Farro with walnut-parsley sauce; Maria in Sicily and her homemade Ricotta; and Usha’s dense, flaky hazelnut roll in Le Marche. I recently had the pleasure of speaking to Theroux about her journey and how Italy’s grandmothers profoundly changed much more than her approach to cooking. Read more