Welcome back to With Two Spoons! I’m going to do something slightly different for the Friday Five today and tell you about a conference I recently went to called Healthy Kitchens, Healthy Lives. It was all about teaching people to cook in a more healthy fashion and to support healthy food choices for everyone. Did I mention it was held in Napa, California? Read on for more on what I loved and get ready for a lot of fun photos (keeping in mind, I only had my iphone with me)!
Walking along the river on the way to the Healthy Kitchens conference at the Culinary Institute at Copia, Napa, California.
The drive from San Francisco to Napa.
Healthy Kitchens, Healthy Lives is a conference that is jointly sponsored by The Harvard School of Public Health and The Culinary Institute of America. It is held at the Culinary Institute of America at Copia which is in the middle of Napa, California. I went with my friend, Lena, who is a pediatrician. We flew to San Francisco and then drove to Napa to start our week of learning and fun!
Here are the 5 things that I loved most about this unique conference…
1.The Culinary Institute of America at Copia. Such an amazing place for a conference! Such an inspiring space. Above you can see the wall of bundt pans! There was also a wall of baking pans, a wall of rolling pins and a wall of whisks! Such fun decorations!
2. The food! Who ever rates the food at a conference at the top of the list of things they loved? Unheard of! We ate constantly at this conference. Healthy, whole foods, full of fiber and nutrients. We tasted the results of the cooking demonstrations, amazing creations by the chefs of the Culinary Institute of America, not to mention a wine reception each the evening!
3. The chefs! There were multiple cooking demonstrations by famous chefs- Suvir Saran, Ana Sortun, Iliana de la Vega, Julia Nordgren, and more! So much fun to learn from these greats! They made cooking approachable and fun, while sharing so many tips and tricks!
Lane-May Masala add a pinch of spice and magic to all you do- Suvir
4. Cookbooks! The conference was great for my cookbook collection! I added signed copies of some great books and I’ll have a blast later this weekend when I have time to sit and read through all of these gorgeous recipes!
5. Friends. Friends, both old and new, made this the most amazing conference ever. I made new friends with so many similar interests! We got to cook in the Culinary Institute’s Hestan Kitchens and we got to eat all of our delicious creations! Plus my dear friend, Lena, and I were able to get tons of great food ideas for our next dinners and girls’ weekends!
As if this wasn’t enough reason to LOVE this conference, we also had some time to enjoy a bike tour through wine country, as well as a tram and cave tour of the beautiful Benziger winery in Sonoma, and a beer at Lagunitas in Petaluma. We hiked, biked, and relaxed. The perfect end to the perfect week.
If you want any further information on this conference, please contact us!
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[…] oil in baked goods is a great substitution for butter or milk products. And as I learned at my Healthy Kitchen, Healthy Lives course, olive oil is a truly healthy source of fat. Let’s a take a moment to cheer about […]