Recently I graduated from the Natural Gourmet Institute for food and Health. I became a vegetarian about 8 years ago when I figured out that it helped clear up most of my health problems. I also stopped eating refined sugar and lost my blues doing so. Never thought of that before, wish I had. These changes did my state of mind a whole lot of good.

At the cooking school I was introduced to being a vegan, an even more 'friendly' way of eating. I never came across it in the Netherlands where I was born (I'm sure you vegans are out there, but boy, must you have a hard time shopping!).

I was also introduced to the importance of eating organic. Last but not least I learned a lot of cooking and baking - with natural sugars and without dairy - that will make it easy to dish up yummy food to skeptics and spread the news on food and healing.

I like to do food coaching. I create personal programs for people, working with them towards a healthy and happier mind and body. I teach people creative cooking classes, as part of this food turn-around. So the new lifestyle becomes a joy to prepare and a feast to eat. If they want to leave the cooking up to me I whip up their vegetarian or vegan dinner party. I'm the mystery chef in the sense that they can't order - all they can tell me is what they don't like eating and express their favorites. When things get less crazy in my life, I'm sure I'll get organized with my menus and be more of an 'official' chef-for-hire. But for now this is kind of a fun way to keep it fresh.

I love doing demo's at organic markets - especially for kids. Nothing beats them dragging their parents over because what they just sampled has to be made by mom or dad TONIGHT!! Especially when it's eggplant a la Dree instead of cookies! There's always a stack of my simple recipes available at events like that. So nothing can stand in the way of trying it out at home. It'll take a while I'm sure - New York life being the positive but demanding challenge that it is- but I have started writing my own cookbook.

Until you can get your hands on it, do check out the links under Food on the home page. Or check out Dree's Bookshelf to get started yourself. Have fun getting your juices flowing cooking up a storm!