Glowing, radiant health is the new black. Our Green Table is serving it up, for the whole body! Healthy recipes and tips, the latest on eco-friendly food and "skin food"products and a head's up on ingredient safety are all woven into family-centered stories and discoveries. Bring informed, aware and empowered looks good on everyone!



Abrazos! xox Penny








About Me



I have a passion for life and a passion for eating. I love food. I love what great food can bring to life. I have noticed that both food and life can get a little hectic and confusing, and so I am on a journey to peace. I don't think the tale about the cat got it right...curiosity did not kill the cat. I believe it's what gave him nine lives. And so, I am firing up my curiosity and heading out in search of more peaceful eating and more peaceful living.

The power of food to heal or hinder health and how our choices impact our quality of life, the environment and the world around us are major concerns of mine. (In Featured Recipes,  there is a post under "environmental impact" where I share some of what I am doing.) I decided fairly recently to become a vegetarian and am learning new ways to cook and foods to eat. I am also balancing the challenges of being the "filling" in this stage of life's sandwich...caught between caring for myself and my family and the needs of my parents...and we live far away from each other.

At a young age, I struggled with food allergies and yet nibbled away my fair share of Sara Lee frozen banana cakes and Klondike ice cream bars. I entered my teenage years overweight and underhappy. The feeling of "I don't want to live like this" inspired me to lose that weight, go to college and study how food impacts not just physical health, but mental well-being and behavior.

My degree from The Honors College of Kent State University is a B.S.in Foods and Nutrition with a minor in Biochemistry. I graduated magna cum laude and as sort of a renegade. I did not believe that the USDA Food Pyramid was healthy or that those milk moustache commercials were either. Still don't. 

Wouldn't it be great to help create a community of happy, healthy eaters and have fun doing it?! I think the fun improves the work and while there is lots of work to do, we all do better together while we are having a good time, don't you agree?

"Table talk" can be as delightful and nourishing as the foods served. I love the healing that gathering around a table and sharing stories can provide. I especially love the green table that sits in my kitchen. This is the table I am setting with a return to what cooking, eating and living are all about for me...comfort, company, compassion and choices that can make a difference.

"There is an expression, 'That's the least I can do.' Here we challenge you to 'That's the most I can do.'

A compassionate and healthy world begins within."

xoxox Penny

Peace starts with every bite. The cartoon The Family Circus is sweet and funny but no living creature's life, including our own, should be a three-ring circus. And so, please join us in everything we do to create a better world.


For information on this campaign, go here: http://www.peta.org/feat-ringling.asp