MEET THE CHEFS
Allison WeishausAllison started her culinary career at the age of 16 when she became a cake decorator at her mother's shop. She went on to study both baking and pastry as well as culinary arts at The Culinary Institute of America. After becoming interested in learning more about alternative cooking styles and nutrition, she enrolled in a program at The Natural Gourmet Institute, where she met her incredibly skilled partner (and best friend), Michele.
Allison has worked in a variety of culinary environments from restaurants to schools, private homes, commercial kitchens, and more. She has experience cooking for a variety of diets including vegetarian, vegan, kosher, paleo, and ketogenic. Her passion for fresh, flavorful, and simple whole foods is what guides her cooking style. Humanely-raised meats and poultry, sustainable seafood, and organic produce, nuts, and grains make up a majority of her menu choices. While nutrition is always on her radar, she understands the importance of indulgences, as well, and will rarely be seen before bed without a bowl of popcorn in hand. When she's not cooking, Allison spends her time buying things from Amazon Prime and watching Ally McBeal in her Brooklyn apartment. |
Michele WolfsonMichele is passionate about nutritious and flavorful food. Both her Italian-American heritage and her lifelong vegetarianism (well, since age 7) have influenced her cooking style and love of home-cooked meals. She was raised by a mother who cooked delicious dinners most nights of the week and a father who loved gardening and passed along his green thumb to Michele. If you ever want to see Michele's eyes grow wide and her head uncontrollably nod in delight, visit her in one of her gardens after she has just picked and tasted the most deliciously crisp sweet pea. There are fewer things that delight Michele more than tasting the produce in her gardens on a warm summer morning.
Michele studied at The Natural Gourmet Institute and has worked in social-media marketing, restaurant kitchens (such as Le Verdure at Eataly), as well as private homes. Designing plant-based meals that are healthy and scrumptious is her speciality. To her, cooking is love, and food is a universal language. The thought of family and friends around a table laughing and bonding over delicious food is what fuels Michele and helps motivate her to be creative in the kitchen. Her #1 taste-tester is her husband, Sam, who very willingly eats Michele's recipes practically every night for dinner. The best part of starting Turnip the Flavor is that she gets to create incredible meals with her awesome and talented business partner, Alli Weishaus. |