Hi, I'm Katrina!

I'm your American cooking instructor who lives in the French countryside. I'm loving the life being married to a beekeeper and tending our huge vegetable garden. I organize French culinary retreats throughout the year, so stay tuned for our next one! If you're into experiential, authentic travel experiences, these beautifully curated retreats are for you! It's the slow kind of travel that will give you a real taste of how the locals live, and you'll get plenty spoiled too!

I'm here to help you become a better cook with whole, mostly plant-based foods, (a little fish or light meat from time to time) and to think about the seasonality of your ingredients and how to use your food before throwing it away. I want you to feel empowered to be creative in the kitchen and use what you have on hand to create balanced, healthy, and incredibly delicious, satisfying meals. This is my mission and I'll show you how to use up your ingredients, so you have the least food waste possible.

My roots are in sustainability and I love to make internationally-inspired food with simple, wholesome ingredients accessible to all. I've taught cooking classes for 10 years, have been closely involved with the Slow Food movement as a US delegate to Terra Madre in Turino, Italy, and was a Seed-to-Table Cooking Instructor for Slow Food Denver, Colorado.

I've been a francophile for a while now. As a French major in college I spent a year in Grenoble, France, and speak the language fluently. I've fully embraced French culture and love the slower pace of life here, and that as a culture they know how to slow down to enjoy the finer things of life. Even if that's simply enjoying a drink on an outdoor patio in the sunshine, or a picnic in a park.

I can't wait to show you around this beautiful region of France!

~ Katrina

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Cook with you soon!

Katrina

Contact me at katrina@empoweredkitchen.com

My mission:

I want to help teach you how to cook so you can bring out the authentic flavors of the vegetables or ingredients you're cooking with, and not be afraid to add a little (or a lot) of spice here and there.

We'll learn to appreciate other cultures, perhaps first through our taste buds, so we can all help create a more connected, peaceful world and realize we're all more similar than different. Yet I believe it's our differences that make the world a beautiful tapestry of unique colors, aromas, and flavors.

Contact me and we'll cook together!

March 2020 Interview with Jacques Pépin

about Food Waste: How & Why we Should Use our Food Wisely

The Power of Reusing Food Scraps

What you think is waste might be your next meal! There are many creative ways to use the all the often castaway parts of fruits, vegetables, meats and bones that can make hearty, nutrient-rich and delicious meals!
Food scraps make great stocks, sauces & creative dishes, even before you compost the rest.
Katrina's classes will teach you all about how to do this!

Benefits of Cutting Back on Food Waste

Save Money

The average American family of 4 throws away $2,200 worth of food every year!
Every day the U.S. creates enough food waste to fill the Rose Bowl Stadium at least once, and maybe twice, depending on the estimate.
If we reduced this food waste by just 16%, we could feed every hungry person in America.

Fight Climate Change: It's Real Folks

Methane is a greenhouse gas. Rotting food emits a lot of methane. Landfills are the second largest source of methane after - ahem - cow farts. Food waste makes up the largest part of those methane emissions.
For the first 20 years that food is rotting, the methane is 72 times more potent as a greenhouse gas than CO2
19% of landfill waste is food scraps. This food waste is heavy (mostly made up of water) and is often shipped by trucks that get an average of 4-7 mpg! This represents more CO2 emissions and trashed tax dollars too.
Every time food is thrown away, all the resources used to grow, package, distribute and store that food were wasted too. This includes water, fossil fuels, fertilizers, pesticides, packaging materials, electricity for refrigeration, and so much more.

Learn to Compost:

Food scraps make great compost!

This compost can then be used on your own vegetable garden to enrich the soil and grow healthy food. It can also be given to area farmers for them to grow food for us. This is a great, free alternative to petroleum-based fertilizers, which also can have a negative environmental impact

*All statistics taken from American Wasteland: How America Throws Away Nearly Half of It's Food (and What We Can Do About It), by Jonathan Bloom