Valerie Jenner

About me

The Blog: Join me on my adventure to try to create a zero impact kitchen. Zero Kitchen is about doing as little harm as possible outside the kitchen while creating fresh healthy and nutritious food for family and friends. I don't expect to get to zero, but I am curious to see how low I can go. Possibly get to my fair share of the planet instead of using more than available. I am working under the assumption that because I buy as local and organic as possible, use slow food principles, am highly aware of food issues, am a great recycler and fairly good at reducing packaging and waste, that I have a small environmental footprint, smaller than my neighbor at least. This blog's purpose is to examine the bigger picture and truly understand my part in global issues. I hope I'm right - and I promise not to fudge any numbers or issues - I really want to know what it takes to get to zero.

While recipes start our journey on this blog, we will be examining the impact of our creations on food sources, waste stream impact, environmental and carbon footprint. I'm going to eventually try to understand the impact I am making through each recipe on the environment including the energy I use to buy, make, store as well as other aspects that will pop up as I go. I'm starting this blog at the end of the harvest. It would have been easier over the summer glut of fresh produce and busy farmers markets. We'll see how it goes in fall and winter when local produce is harder to find.

Quick synopsis: Food History Highlights: I ran the kitchen at Seagrams Museum when they first opened, and owned a catering/deli business for 10 years. Over time I have worked in kitchens from fast food to large professional museums to film catering. I have cooked International menus, vegetarian and vegan. My largest job was catering for 1200 people. My most traumatic event I deboned 250 quails for a tour of Fra