MY STORY

I will never forget the day I opened my son’s college essay and read the line: “My mother owned three restaurants… and yet there was rarely any food in the house.”

I sat with that sentence for a long time – and ultimately, that single moment forced me to see the kitchen in a completely different way.

Because Jeffrey wasn’t wrong: owning restaurants, I had spent years feeding other people’s families, while going through the motions in my own kitchen. I had started treating meals like something to get through… if I got to them at all. And somewhere along the line, I’d stopped being present in my own kitchen, at my own table.

Meanwhile, my own childhood couldn’t have been more different. My mother cooked every single day and, I realize now, she did it with love, mindfulness, and care. She might not have used those words to describe it, but it’s exactly what I think of when I look back. It even started with how she chose ingredients. I can still see her at a farm market, picking up a freshly picked tomato and holding it like it was gold. She would bring it to her nose, close her eyes for a moment, and then smile, this quiet, gentle smile that said everything.

I knew I didn’t need to become my mother. But I did want my kids to feel even a fraction of what I felt growing up and that the kitchen was a place of comfort, not chaos. A place you remembered, not just a place to eat.

So, I started small in a way that made sense for our pace, our schedules, the world we were living in. And once I started paying attention, change became easy. I started looking for different ways to bring more of my mom into the kitchen and it wasn't very long before I started to see a little more of her in me. And before long the kitchen stopped feeling like another task to manage and started feeling like a place that offered so much more than just another room in the house. It became a place of mindfulness, belonging and purpose.

I never set out to write a book. But I kept coming back to something my mom always believed: “Make sure you leave the world a little better than you found it.”

For a long time, I wasn’t sure what that would look like for me.

Then something started to shift. As I made small changes in my kitchen, I began to feel happier. What surprised me was how that feeling carried into the rest of my life. I became less judgmental, less hard on myself. I felt more connected to my family, to the food I was eating, and to the people who helped bring it to my table.

That’s when it clicked. This was my way of leaving the world better than I found it.

I began to understand that the way we show up in our kitchens can shape the kind of people we become and contribute to the world we want to live in. This was something that was important to share and which is now the My Mindful Kitchen (MMK) Method.

And that's why I’m writing the book!

WHERE THIS WORK STEMS FROM

I’ve spent my career at the intersection of food and people. I’ve taught hospitality at the Culinary Institute of America, and I’ve volunteered, served on boards, and helped raise funds for nonprofit hunger relief organizations. Through this work, I’ve seen how access to good food, along with the knowledge of what to do with it, can change people’s lives.

The work I’m most proud of, though, is what I’ve been building over the past three years with My Mindful Kitchen. It has grown into a community, a course, and a practical way to use the kitchen as a place to reconnect with what matters.

Through this work, I began to see something more clearly. Food does more than nourish our physical well-being it nurtures our emotional well-being too. The way we show up around it shapes how we feel, how we relate to each other, and how we move through our days.

As life continues to move faster, having a place to come back to matters. The kitchen is one of the few spaces we return to every day, which makes it the natural place to practice living with more intention.

WHAT YOUR SUPPORT MAKES POSSIBLE

This is not a cookbook, and the project is about more than just writing a book. My Mindful Kitchen: Do One Small Thing is ultimately about responding to some of the most pressing challenges of this century, from rising food costs to concerns about the environment and the future of our food systems.

It’s also about taking back our power as individuals. When we begin to make more mindful choices in the kitchen, those choices ripple outward into how we eat, spend, care for our communities, and care for our planet.

Through stories and practical guidance, the book shows that the kitchen is much more than a place where meals happen. It becomes a place where we practice how we want to live.

To bring this important idea into the world, I am raising funds to support the next stage of the book’s development. This includes:

During this first round, I’m reaching out to the people that know me best: friends, family, and the community that’s been part of this work from the beginning. (Maybe even before I had the language for it!) If you’ve sat at my table or heard me talk about this idea for longer than either of us can remember… this is me finally asking for help to bring it into the world.

WHAT YOU’RE BECOMING PART OF

When this book exists, it won’t just be to sit on a shelf. It will serve as a resource for the people most positioned to change the world:

The people who support this campaign are the ones bringing this movement to life, and who help declare, once and for all, that the kitchen is more than just where meals happen – it’s how we practice the world we want to live in.

Remember how my mother always used to tell me to leave the world better than I found it? This book is how we honor that, and your support is how we do it together.

With gratitude,

Janet

If you’re curious and want to get a feel for the book, you can find the prologue on my website by clicking here.