Meet the Chef
Lisa’s early cooking inspiration spawned from her grandmother’s seamless and intuitive ability to create traditional Italian food. In her family, food has always been synonymous with love. For Lisa, feeding others is both a pastime and a passion. Lisa has been a coordinator and lead chef of non-profit river trips for the last seven years, catering to a variety of dietary needs and preferences.
Inspired to reverse heart disease after losing her 44-year old father to a cardiac arrest, Lisa chose a vegan-based lifestyle for the past 10 years. She currently holds a certification in plant-based cooking and is a licensed Food for Life Instructor with the Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine. She’s the owner of The Voracious Vegan, a plant-based catering company, that provides plant-based, creative, and homemade food to nurture and sustain healthy lives.
My Story
My formal chef journey began in 1989 with cooking for 12 vegetarians at a remote summer camp in Gold Hill, Colorado the summer I graduated from college. At that time, there were little to no resources for eating vegetarian, so I drove down to the local library and found a tattered book called International Vegetarian Cooking. The staff and campers loved every dish that came out of that little book. And I was hooked on cooking nutritious food for others.​
I was amazed when, at the age of 32- a devout vegetarian and runner, my doctor discovered alarmingly high cholesterol levels (hypolipidemia) and premature thickening of the arteries. I was pregnant with my first child and concerned that I was inheriting the same fate as my father. Luckily, the team of doctors in my town were well-versed in the effects of a whole foods, plant-based dietary intervention to control my cholesterol and heart disease management. I have been on board ever since. And believe me, the food has not been a sacrifice. My taste buds have re-emerged, and the elimination of processed food on my daily diet is a distant memory. My husband states emphatically that we eat, "vegan gourmet"!
