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A son of displaced farmers, Michel Nischan grew up with
a deep appreciation for sustainable agriculture and
those who work the land. As a professional chef and
advocate for a more healthful, organic and sustainable
food future, he has built on those childhood values and
become a catalyst for change and new initiatives in
local and regional food systems.
A two-time James Beard Foundation
award winner,
Michel is Chef/Owner of
Dressing Room: A Homegrown Restaurant, located
at Westport (CT) Country Playhouse, and President /CEO
of
Wholesome Wave Foundation, a
non-profit organization focused on making locally and
sustainably grown foods available to all.
Through Nell Newman,
the driving force behind Newman’s
Own Organics®,
Michel met her father Paul,
who planned to become involved in a restaurant. Paul and
Michel found their beliefs on food, family and community
to be remarkably aligned, and in 2006, Dressing Room
was opened, as the
place where their shared values could have a dynamic and
engaging platform.
Wholesome Wave
was created in 2007 with funding from Newman’s Own
Foundation and the Betsy and Jesse Fink Foundation, and
is now supported in part by funding from Grow for
Good, a philanthropic initiative of FOOD & WINE
Magazine. Wholesome Wave and Dressing Room
work in tandem to create grassroots initiatives that
celebrate local food systems and heritage recipes. “We
were well loved for our home-fried chicken, apple pie
and pot roast long before we became the land of fast
food,” says Nischan. Wholesome Wave funds and
manages two farmers markets and is working with low
income communities to create greater access to local
foods and also created and manages Green Wave
Farm-to-College, a value-added local food initiative for
college dining halls. Newman and Nischan appeared on
ABC World News with Charles Gibson in November 2006
as Persons of the Week for their community outreach
efforts, as well as ABC News Nightline on May
2007.
When
his five year old son was diagnosed with juvenile
diabetes in 1994, Michel was inspired to create a
“cuisine of well-being”, focusing on pure, flavorful,
local, organic food without highly processed
ingredients. “Chris’s illness made me realize that
floating on foie gras, bathing in cream, and dusting in
processed flour might not be in my customers’ best
interest”, Michel explains.
He introduced his groundbreaking new cuisine at
Heartbeat restaurant at the W Hotel in midtown Manhattan
in 1997, and was immediately propelled to the forefront
of New York’s culinary scene.
Michel puts his healthful and sustainable culinary focus
into print as a contributing editor for Food Arts
Magazine, where he was a Silver Spoon Award honoree
in 2006, and in two well-received cookbooks,
Homegrown Pure and Simple: Great Healthy Food
from Garden to Table (Chronicle Books, 2005) and
Taste Pure and Simple:
Irresistible Recipes for Good Food and Good Health
(Chronicle Books, 2003). Taste made the New
York Times and Wall Street Journal’s best
seller lists and won a 2004 James Beard Foundation
Cookbook Award, given by industry peers and more than
600 culinary professionals.
Most recently, his appearances on PBS Victory Garden
were honored a 2007 James Beard Foundation Best
National/Local TV Food Segment.
He also serves on the boards of the Amazon Conservation
Team and Harvard’s Center for Health and the Global
Environment. Michel lives in Fairfield CT with his
wife, Lori and their five children.
>> Click here to Meet Michel.
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