Kate Pope
My work as a nutritional therapist started with my own journey of health and healing. I started to understand the body’s innate intelligence as a young person searching for answers to questions about life and death. I spent a lot of time dancing, socializing and self reflecting as a teenager and a series of tragedies led me to a career in dance, where I focused on arts and social justice and performance. In this time I moved to Gainesville Florida and I learned about Local Living and became a “locavore.”
When I moved to Seattle 6 years later in 2015 I got a job working for Skagit River Ranch under Eiko Vojokovich. Eiko is a Seattle Icon. Her values, integrity, hard work, loving-kindness, instilled in me a deep sense of gratitude and an honoring for community, hard-work and delicious regenerative beef. Eiko knew about my passion for good food as a way of life and my time at the farmers market introduced me to a whole new world of culinary pursuits.
After two years of living in Seattle and free-lance dancing, nannying and cooking for families, I declared to myself, my mom and farmers market friends that I wanted to be a food consultant! I would help families sift through all the dietary dogma and find their true health and happiness eating delicious whole foods from the farmers market.
One day, I got a phone call, and a friend of a friend had referred me for a Private Chef Position. This job was cooking for one family, full time. For the past 4 years I have been cooking local, nutrient dense foods in both Seattle WA and on the Big Island in Hawaii.
In 2017 I became a Functional Nutritional Therapy Practitioner and Regenerative Cooking School was born.
Regenerative Cooking School teaches people the foundations of therapeutic cooking. It provides support for transitioning from a Standard American Diet to one of delicious, nutrient dense whole foods, specifically for families. At this point we have a variety of clients, all who want to cook more, but don’t know how. We provide recipes, cooking instructions, and nutritional therapy in 1:1 sessions, group coaching and cooking classes.
We are in the business of helping more people access their power and live fully their best lives. Empowerment and power is at the heart of what we do by connecting people to local farmers, local economies and most importantly, themselves.
Regenerative Cooking School teaches about the systemic issues of eating fast food, processed foods, and fake foods-- even beyond how it makes you feel. When taking the birds eye view of these lifestyle habits for the financial, social and health impacts they are having on families and individuals, it is easier to let them go. We teach decision making around food by showing you when it's important to look at the bigger picture, and when to consider the micro, ultimately creating more balance in your personal ecosystem. We teach you to start to weave the web of wellness with whole foods as a strong foundation.
Alex Johnson
I am a farmer butcher. I travel to farms all around the PNW and sherpard animals from their lives on pasture to sustenance for my community. Unlike traditional opperations that shuttle animals to strange locatoins to meet their deminse, I have the honor to stand in revenerece with the farmer and celebrate the life of the animal on the very fields they are born, bred, and ulitmatly butchered on. I have watched farmers shed tears, share stories, and sigh in relief as they pass their lives work into my hands.
I am a mad scientist in the kitchen. I’ll say yes to any task, do just enough research to get the gist of it, and then figure the rest out in the heat of the kitchen. What keeps me going is the endless amount of techniques and dishes that appear when you keep your head in the wild of cooking. From farmers who are pulling out vegetables, I’ve never seen to butchers who are experimenting with new cuts; it’s the food community that fuels my sense of adventure and creation.
I “woke up” to food while living in NYC in 2014. After a year of too many bodega footlongs, and suspect fried chicken my mind and body had reached a (weight)limit. Coffee, weed, and beer were bandages for deeper nutritional deficits I was not listening close enough to realize. One of my best friends and roommates at the time had bought a cookbook that lay in our kitchen mostly unused and collecting dust. The cookbook was “Nom Nom Paleo” and once I opened it I never looked back. It lead me on a culinary and healing journey that eliminated all of the crud that was slowing me down, but even more importantly introduced me to the importance of quality ingredients. Not just your meats and vegetables, but your cooking oils, sauces, and seasonings.
In the last half-decade, I’ve dedicated myself to healing and transformation with food being at the center of my experience. All of this step-for-step with Kate (sometimes I’m like a half-step behind, but I usually catch up :)) We’ve tackled unimaginable tasks like packing up our car with a 120lb pig, our bunny, and driving 3 hours from home to do a pig roast at the base of Mt. Rainer for 80 people all while not sleeping for 48 hours, graduating as Nutritional Therapist while working full-time jobs, finding joy in creating new meals and new opportunities for our selves, and growing closer all the while. But nothing will surpass our best accomplish to date- the birth of our first son, Augustine.
I worked for a decade as a Child Therapist before I moved into Regenerative Food and what I’ve come to realize is that food is a part of a much greater cycle and, whether you participate or not, we are all immensely important to its continuation. And the most wonderful part? Whatever energy you put into the well-being of the cycle comes directly back to you. Health, wellness, friendship, community, ritual, discipline, and resilience have made their way into my life in ways I never could have imagined since I started paying attention to food and its many structures. Regenerative Cooking School is our seed to pass along to as many as would like to be a part of the well-being of the cycle.