FRIENDS

Our Advisory Board

Mario Batali
Mario, whose original career path had him studying the golden age of Spanish theater at Rutgers University, took his first bite of culinary training at Le Cordon Bleu in London, from which he withdrew almost immediately due to a "lack of interest." An apprenticeship with London's legendary Marco Pierre White and three years cooking and learning in the Northern Italian village of Borgo Capanne, population 100, gave him what he needed to return to his native US and plant his orange-clogged foot firmly in the behinds of the checkered tablecloth-Italian restaurant establishment. Among his many culinary accolades, Mario was named "Man of the Year" in the Chef category by GQ Magazine in 1999, and in 2002 won the James Beard Foundation's Best Chef: New York City award. In addition to steering his businesses through their successes, Mario Batali hosts his own programs, "Molto Mario" and "Mario Eats Italy" on the Television Food Network. His new series "Ciao America" premiered in October 2003. He most recent book, The Babbo Cookbook, was released in 2002. Batali lives in New York City with his wife Susi Cahn, of the Coach Dairy Goat Farm, and their two sons, Benno and Leo. Mario is also one of the recipients of the 2001 D'Artagnan Cervena Who's Who of Food & Beverage in America, a prestigious lifetime achievement award.

Michael Batterberry
Michael and Ariane Batterberry have founded two of the milestone national food magazines in this century: FOOD ARTS, the publication by and for the country's leading food and drink professionals and FOOD AND WINE, one the country's leading consumer magazines. Together or individually, they have authored eighteen books on food, entertaining, and art and social history. Several (The Pantheon Story Of Art; Fashion: The Mirror Of History; Bloomingdales Book Of Entertaining) have been best sellers. The Batterberrys are among the few authors who have had four concurrent Literary Guild selections.

Michael Batterberry has appeared regularly on CNNFN (CNN's financial network) as commentator on trends in the restaurant industry. He served as introductory host to the Public Television series "Rising Star Chefs"in 1997 and he continues to be repeatedly interviewed by CNN, TV Food Network, Britain's BBC and other European programmers.

The Batterberrys are in the James Beard Foundation's Who's Who in Food and Beverage in America, and were also chosen by the Foundations as Editors of the year in 1994. IN 1998 Ariane Batterberry was chosen as Women of the year by the Roundtable for Women in Foodservice. Michael Batterberry served for six years as a member of the National Board of the American Institute of Wine and Food. He is also on the Board of the French Culinary Institute and a Member of the Corporation of the Culinary Institute of America. He was also asked onto the board of Women Chefs and Restaurateurs. He is on the Board of Stone Barns and the Smithsonian Folk Life Festival in 2005.

Dr. Vincent Amanor-Boadu
Vincent Amanor-Boadu is an Assistant Professor and the Director of the Value-Added Business Development Program in the Department of Agricultural Economics. The Value-Added Business Development Program seeks to be the catalyst for changing perceptions about, and transforming performance of, agriculture and food value-added products and services. Vincent is also a Research Associate in the Agricultural Marketing Resource Center (AgMRC), a national center created by Congress to undertake research and outreach on efforts to improve the profitability of producers involved in agricultural value-added initiatives. Vincent obtained his PhD from the University of Guelph in Ontario, Canada. He is the former Director of Research at the George Morris Centre, an independent agri-food think-tank in Canada. Prior to joining the Department, Vincent was the Managing Director of AgriFood Innovations, a strategic consulting firm focusing on agriculture, food and biotechnology industries. Vincent is a member of faculty of the Department's highly recognized Management, Analysis and Strategic Thinking (MAST) program, which combines face-to-face and state-of-the-art distance education techniques to deliver high-level learning environment for high performing producers.

Vincent is on the editorial board of the Journal on Chain and Network Science. He is a director of Air Quality Solutions, a technology company using biofiltration to enhance indoor air quality. He also served two years as a director of The Centre for Rural Leadership, a non-profit organization with the mandate to create and deliver executive education programs in leadership for agricultural and rural stakeholders. He is also a member of the Farm Foundation's prestigious Bennett Roundtable.

Oran B. Hesterman
Dr. Hesterman is program director for Food Systems and Rural Development programming at the W.K. Kellogg Foundation of Battle Creek, Michigan. In this role, he provides primary leadership to the Foundation's Food and Society Initiative, in addition to focusing on Food Systems and Rural Development policy.

Dr. Hesterman's key responsibilities include domestic and international planning and development, reviewing and assessing new proposals, and managing active projects. He also is active in organizing international seminars on sustainable agriculture and community-based food systems on behalf of the Kellogg Foundation at the Salzburg Seminar in Austria. Previously, Dr. Hesterman researched and taught forage and cropping systems management, sustainable agriculture, and leadership development in the Crop and Soil Sciences department at Michigan State University in East Lansing. From 1987-1990, he was a fellow in the Kellogg National Fellowship Program (KNFP).

Dr. Hesterman was a fellow at the National Center for Food and Agriculture Policy in Washington, D.C. In the area of sustainable agriculture, he has authored or co-authored more than 400 reports, journal publications, and book chapters. Dr. Hesterman earned his bachelor's and master's degrees at the University of California-Davis in plant science/vegetable crops and agronomy, respectively. He received his doctorate in agronomy and business administration from the University of Minnesota, in St. Paul.

Winona La Duke
Winona La Duke is an Ojibwe community organizer, economist and author who lives and works on the White Earth reservation in northern Minnesota.

She has worked extensively on Indigenous rights and environmental issues, most recently on the issues surrounding the patenting and genetic threats to wild rice, or manoomin.

Winona's four books include Last Standing Woman (fiction), All our Relations, Winona LaDuke Reader (non fiction), and In the Sugarbush, a children's book.

Winona has served as a boardmember of the Indigenous Women's Network for the past 10 years. She also served on the board of Greenpeace USA (l99l-96) and is founding director of both the White Earth Land Recovery Program and Honor the Earth, a national Native American foundation. Winona ran as the vice presidential candidate for the Green Party in the United States presidential elections in l996 and 2000.

Zak Pelaccio
Zakary is the executive chef at the highly acclaimed 5 Ninth Restaurant, located in the heart of Manhattan's Meatpacking District. 5 Ninth serves a seasonal, modern American menu. Previously, Zak was the chef at the highly lauded Chickenbone Café, a restaurant located in Williamsburg, Brooklyn. Zak was instrumental in the concept development and build out, and was solely responsible for creating the menu and beverage lists. The unique menu that Zak developed incorporated many influences and cooking methods and ultimately became dubbed by the Press: Brooklyn Global. Zak is also a co-leader of Slow Food New York and he recently edited a Slow Food USA eating and drinking guide to New York City, that was released in the Spring of 2003.

Zak was the Founder and CEO of wiredkitchen.com, an Internet based software company with a core competency in inventory management and procurement for the full service restaurant. Before venturing into the food software business, Zak worked at some of the finest restaurants in New York City and the San Francisco Bay Area in various capacities. After graduation he worked as a chef in some of the country's most elite restaurants-The French Laundry in Napa Valley, California and Daniel in New York, New York. In addition to his culinary studies, Zak received a BA from the University of Vermont with coursework completed in Florence, Italy, the University of California at Berkeley and Columbia University, New York.

Gary Paul Nabhan
Gary is the recipient of a MacArthur "genius Award" fellowship and a Lifetime Achievement Award from the Society for Conservation biology. Nabhan is author of sixteen books, three of which have received national or international awards. Two of his most recent include: Coming Home to Eat and Tequila, A Natural and Cultural History. His next book will be titled Some Like it Hot. He is Director of the Center for Sustainable Environments at Northern Arizona University.

Michel Nischan
As a Renowned Chef and Best-selling Author, Michel Nischan is credited with creating a cuisine of well-being, focused on a respect for pure ingredients and intense flavors - without the use of cream, butter, processed starches or processed sugars. The inspiration to explore full-flavored cooking without such indulgences came in 1994 from his son Chris who, at age five, was diagnosed with Juvenile Diabetes.

Michel Nischan debuted his revolutionary cuisine at Heartbeat Restaurant at the W Hotel in 1997, and was immediately propelled to the forefront of New York's culinary scene. Since then he has continued to raise the bar for delicious and healthful cooking and is continually lauded for his dedication to Well-Being, Organics & Sustainability, and Cultural Food Preservation. He has been nominated for a 2004 James Beard Award for his first cookbook, TASTE, Pure and Simple (Chronicle Books, 2003), a New York Times and Wall Street Journal best-seller.

As president of Sources and Resources, Michel brings all of his passion and expertise to a variety of companies and organizations in pursuit of healthful, culturally significant and socially responsible food solutions. Michel's current clients and projects include work with the W.K. Kellogg Foundation's Food and Society Conference, the Ross School, The French Culinary Institute, Song Airways where Michel is the executive consulting chef for the first all-class airline to offer organic responsible food choices and flies 30,000 people daily, and Taj Luxury Hotels Group, in India, where he is developing restaurant concepts based on well-being.

Bill Niman
Bill Niman has been providing naturally raised beef, pork, and lamb to fine restaurants for more than thirty years. A graduate of the University of Minnesota (B.A. Anthropology, 1967), and former teacher, he began raising cattle in 1970 on a ranch in Bolinas, California, that he owned with journalist Orville Schell, who later authored Modern Meat, an expose on the meat industry's increasing reliance on pharmaceuticals, chemicals and other artificial feed additives. As his reputation for superior-tasting meat spread among discerning chefs, Niman began marketing meat to San Francisco Bay area restaurants under the name Niman Schell. In contrast to the so-called "modern" husbandry methods, Niman Schell raised their animals humanely, and naturally, eschewing chemical and drug feed additives. Niman later bought Schell's interest, and brought in new partners who are still with the company today.

Bill Niman still lives on the original ranch in Bolinas, California, together with his wife Nicolette. He was named Food Artisan of the Year by Bon Appetit magazine in 2001 and, in 2003, he was honored with the Glynwood Harvest Good Neighbor Award by Glynwood Center, an organization that works nationally and internationally to support sustainable agriculture. Niman Ranch is headquartered in Oakland, California, from which it delivers meat daily to restaurants and selected retailers in northern California. It has distributors in New York, Seattle, Boston, and Washington and ships directly to restaurants and markets in Atlanta, Los Angeles, Chicago, Portland, Denver, Santa Fe, Miami, and many other locations.

Eric Schlosser
Eric Schlosser, author of the best selling Fast Food Nation, has been investigating the fast food industry for years. In 1998, his two-part article on the subject in Rolling Stone generated more mail than any other item the magazine had run in years. In addition to writing for Rolling Stone, Schlosser has contributed to The New Yorker and has been a correspondent for the Atlantic Monthly since 1996. He won a National Magazine Award for "Reefer Madness" and "Marijuana and the Law" and has received a Sidney Hillman Foundation Award for Reporting. His work has been nominated for several other National Magazine Awards and for the Loeb Award for business journalism. In the words of Eric: "It's time to reclaim American agriculture from the fast food chains, pesticide makers, factory farms and genetic engineers. Our heritage foods are not only healthier and sustainable, but they taste a hell of a lot better. Supporting this revolution is easy: buy the right food from the right folks."

Alice Waters
Alice Waters is the owner of Chez Panisse restaurant in Berkeley, California. Over the last three decades, Chez Panisse has cultivated a network of local farmers who share the restaurant's commitment to sustainable agriculture. In 2001, Chez Panisse was named best restaurant in the United States by Gourmet Magazine. Alice Waters initiated the Edible Schoolyard project in 1995, which incorporates her ideas about food and culture into the public school curriculum. She is author of eight books, the most recent of which is Chez Panisse Fruit (HarperCollins, 2002). Alice is also the International Vice President of Slow Food International and sits on the Board of Directors of Slow Food USA.