ABOUT LAURA

Laura Stec is a chef and author with over 25 years of experience in the food industry. She trained at the Culinary Institute of America, the School of Natural Cookery and the Vega Macrobiotic Study Center and worked at numerous restaurants including Seva in Ann Arbor, MI, and San Francisco Bay Area's Left Bank and Flea Street Café before starting her own business - Laura Stec - Innovative Cuisine. She is a personal chef and caterer of green-cuisine dinner parties for clients such as Google, Stanford University, Silicon Graphics, the American Medical Women's Association, Environmental Defense Fund, Sheldon Whitehouse for Senate, Woodside School with Ronnie Lott, the Biomimicry Conference, Harvard University, Ralph Nader and others. Single Guy and the Personal Chef is Stec's chef service marketed exclusively to the single male. Laura is Culinary Health Instructor for Kaiser Permanente Medical Centers, former chef for Kaiser's organic farmer's market, and former chef instructor for medical weight loss program, LifeLong Inc. Contemporary-nutritional, high-vibe organic, California cuisine, is her specialty.

Promoting food as having a powerful effect on personal and planetary health, Laura founded EcoEaters in 1989, one of the first food and environment education programs in the U.S. She also helped found and taught for The Peaceable Plate Schools Lunch Program, and is a former instructor for Chef's Collaborative Adopt-A-School campaign. In 1994, she became a staff member of Bay Area Action / Acterra; a Palo Alto, CA-based environmental organization. While there, she founded EEAT (the Environmental Eating Action Team) and was chef of the popular Decadent Dinner Parties for over 10 years. Laura still works for Acterra, serving many roles in her 14-year history with the organization. She has seamlessly combined her work in the food and environmental sectors, continuing to visit classrooms and corporations, inspiring eaters of all ages how to have a positive effect on the environment through food choices. It is her passion.

In partnership with EcoSpeakers.com, Stec now lectures across the country and consults with corporations such as Loews Hotels on ways to incorporate "regionally responsible cuisine" into their food service. She lectures on a variety of topics including: Cool Cuisine - Taking the Bite out of Global Warming, Quick Cooking for Optimal Health and Flavor, Cooking with Higher Flavor and Lower Fat, Eat More Vegetables!, Greening your Kitchen, Healing Food and the Power of Macrobiotics, and Kitchen Medicine: Cooking with Medicinal Herbs and Spices, to companies such as Wilson Sonsini Goodrich & Rosati, Roche, Oracle, The Health Trust, Stanford Hospital and Clinics, The Culinary Institute of America, California Farmers' Market Association, American Holistic Nurses Association, Sun Microsystems, and IBM, among others.

Stec just completed her first book, Cool Cuisine - Taking the Bite out of Global Warming with atmospheric scientist Dr. Eugene Cordero of San José State University, released by Gibbs Smith, Publisher. It addresses why global warming could be the best thing to happen to the culinary world in a long time, and reports on innovative science, business, and savory solutions to the Global Warming Diet. Readers embark on an exploration that feeds mind and mouth with art, science, food lore, culinary tips and recipes on how to cook a global cool cuisine.