About Ricki

Ricki's passion for food and cooking spans back to her childhood, when her aunt first taught her to bake chocolate chip cookies at age six. Since then, a lifelong interest in food and health has led Ricki to a variety of food-related pursuits: she has worked as a caterer, baked desserts for a Toronto-area vegetarian restaurant, edited a newsletter on healthy and organic foods, and taught Nutrition and Sociology of Food at Seneca College in Toronto. In addition to running Ricki's Kitchen Cooking Classes, Ricki also teaches cooking for Upstairs at Loblaws and Real Canadian SuperStore cooking schools, writes regularly on food and nutrition for various magazines and newspapers, and presents at various conferences and symposia (including Toronto's annual Vegetarian Food Fair and the Women's Health Matters Forum and Expo). Most recently, she developed a line of organic, healthy baked goods free of wheat, dairy, eggs, or added refined sweeteners.

After health issues forced her to radically alter her diet in the 1990s, Ricki's belief in the healing power of foods intensified. Positive dietary changes accomplished what traditional medicine could not--they freed her from symptoms of IBS (irritable bowel syndrome), and allowed her to wean off medication she'd been taking daily for 16 years. Formal studies in nutrition were a natural consequence, and Ricki subsequently studied at the Canadian School of Natural Nutrition, where she graduated at the top of her class as an RHN (Registered Holistic Nutritionist). Motivated by the great changes to her health, Ricki couldn't wait to share her renewed love of food with others and show people how easy it is to cook with delicious, organic, whole and natural ingredients--and Ricki's Kitchen was born!

Now completely medication-free and devoted to a natural foods lifestyle, Ricki lives and cooks in Concord, Ontario, with her husband and two lab-border collie cross dogs.