Laura Stec is a chef, educator and author, specializing in events and products for healthy people and the planet. Her work has been featured at NPR, Martha Stewart, LA Times, Wall Street Journal, Scientific American, and numerous local and national media sites. She is a private and corporate chef with Laura Stec – Innovative Cuisine, a Culinary Health Educator for Bay-Area corporate wellness programs, and visiting chef with Neely Winery in Portola Valley. She writes The Food Party! for Silicon Valley’s Embarcadero Media and Kitchen Talk for Epicurean Group. Past positions include chef instructor for Kaiser Permanente, chef instructor for Lifelong Inc. and consulting chef for the International Culinary School. As Corporate R & D Chef for Pescadero Foods Inc., Laura worked with pastured-raised chickens on the farm, and on a packaged soup food line using local ingredients for the National School Lunch Program.
Laura’s extensive nonprofit education experience began in 1988 with EcoEaters in Arcata, CA, one of the first U. S. food and environment programs. After 14 years with Palo Alto’s Bay Area Action/Acterra, and EEAT (the Environmental Eating Action Team) she published Cool Cuisine – Taking the Bite Out of Global Warming, with Dr. Eugene Cordero, an atmospheric scientist at San Jose Sate University. Laura and the book traveled around the world discussing the connections between food, climate change, and environment connections, while teaching people quick and healthy cooking tips that changed lives.
Video Profile
As chef Laura’s style is contemporary nutritional, high-vibe, organic, California cuisine. Her Decadent Dinners and education events have been enjoyed by clients such as Sheldon Whitehouse for Senate, football great Ronnie Lott, Ralph Nader, rock-star farmer Joel Salatin, Silicon Valley Community Foundation, the American Medical Women’s Association, Google, Environmental Defense Fund, the Biomimicry Conference and Harvard University.
As speaker and teacher Laura teaches Bay Area corporations about cooking and the people + planet connection with onsite Food Parties, Discovery Bars, farmers markets, and hands-on classes paired with Bay Area wines. Noted by Time Magazine as a “leader who pursued her passion to become a community resource and expert,” she has presented extensively to groups including: Commonwealth Club, California Academy of Sciences, Chico State University, Culinary Institute of America, Survey Monkey, American Dietetic Association, Apple Inc., Northern California Medical Association, Wilson Sonsini Goodrich & Rosati, Roche, Oracle, Adobe, The Health Trust, Stanford Hospital, California Farmers’ Market Association, American Holistic Nurses Association, Sun Microsystems, Trulia, Linked In, Society for Hospitality and Food Service Management, Istituto Nazionale di Recovero e Cura a Carattere Scientifico, and IBM. Laura also teaches private classes at your home or office.
In the classroom Since the 90’s, Laura has been teaching in schools with the Peaceable Plate Schools Lunch Program, Chefs Collaborative, Chefs Move to Schools, Bay Area Tasting Week, and if she has the chance, any school who calls up and asks. At Bowman International School (Palo Alto, CA), her team hosted school-wide events such as Snack Attack!, Farm to Fork with the Seasons, and an Earth Day Solar Cooking Class. Using ingredients from a school garden harvest and eggs from school chickens, the class served up homemade frittatas cooked in solar ovens. See photos.
Culinary education: ProChef® certified: Culinary Institute of America (2012), Culinarian: Culinary Institute of America (1994), Vega Macrobiotic Study Center (1993), School of Natural Cookery (1991)