How doth your garden grow? Although not named Mary, Mary Quite Contrary, Dame Cheri Bloom would have many answers for the questions asked in this vintage English nursery rhyme. Gardening is her passion and vocation, a path she’s developed as an educator in various settings throughout her green-focused career. Her key mission: to construct gardens as a resource for building community, healing, and basic world knowledge for adults, families, and children. Her conviction: There’s nothing you can’t teach outdoors in a garden.

With a horticultural degree paired with a Master’s in Education from the University of Washington, Cheri created her own career direction. Her first position was on the East Coast where she worked with chronically mentally ill adults in a program established on 500 acres of privately donated farmland in New Jersey. Moving to the Seattle area, she joined the staff of a community psychiatric clinic, but the lure of green growing things grew ever stronger. She launched her own company, Samorina Greens, a business cultivating and selling salad greens to restaurants working with Transitional Resources. Her company grew and she was soon at a crossroads: buy a farm or change her career path. Aware of Alice Water’s Edible Schoolyard program, her new pathway appeared and grew as quickly as a pea shoot in springtime.

After completing the Edible Schoolyard training course, Cheri initiated and launched a similar gardening program at Seattle’s Montlake Elementary School, successfully serving as manager and instructor for 17 years. Along with actual digging in the dirt and growing edible delights, the program expanded to produce teaching videos about sustainability and connections between food resources and community.

“Teaching children and their families about food and where it comes from was enlightening for everyone, plus the garden learning structure changed the way kids entered group experiences,” she says.

The Montlake program was also one of the first recipients of the Les Dames Seattle Chapter’s Green Tables grants, with the application initiated by a local parent. “It also introduced me to several remarkably supportive Les Dames members,” she notes. No surprise, she joined the LDES Green Tables committee when she became a Dame in 2018.

Building on her experiences at the Montlake Elementary program, Cheri is now participating in the University of Washington’s “Learning in Places” program evaluating garden education in Seattle schools and seeking ways to support family involvement. The program is funded by a grant from the National Science Foundation and aims to encourage NextGen Science curriculum in Seattle schools.

“I’m excited about what can and will happen in garden education in schools,” she says. “In our COVID time, connections with nature are so important now, and I’m predicting gardens will see a renaissance in schools.” We agree. Thank you for all you do, Cheri!

From Seattle to San Francisco, from San Francisco to Italy, and back again multiple times, Dame Bridget Charters’ distinctive culinary career has spanned continents and inspired professional cooks, foodservice colleagues, and everyday food fans eager to learn fundamentals for favorite dishes. As Head Chef at Hot Stove Society, a dynamic cooking school under the Tom Douglas Restaurants umbrella, she is renowned in Seattle’s food circles for her expertise and professional skills.

In the beginning, it was baklava, brownies, and liverwurst. Bridget says her cooking passions as a teenager started while watching a neighbor prepare feasts for lavish dinner parties. She also cooked her way through Julia Child & Company, a gift from her perceptive mum. She continued cooking while attending Gonzaga University, which led to her decision to attend California Culinary Academy (CCA) in San Francisco following graduation (instead of law school). “At CCA, I felt like a kid in a candy store,” says Bridget. “Every minute! The experience was mind blowing, even when being yelled at.” Her career was decided.

Her San Francisco cooking school training connected her with Carlo Middione, the mastermind behind Vivande Porta Via, and a newfound love of Italian food and cooking. While there she also met culinary greats such as Elizabeth David, Carol Field, and Angelo Pellegrini.

Completing her CCA program, she pursued hotel garde manger positions in 1987 at the Ritz Grand Hotel and Four Seasons Hotel in Boston. Underwhelmed by the East Coast, she returned to San Francisco. “The food buzz was happening in San Francisco, and I loved the food industry connections,” she recalls. She returned to work for Carlo at Vivande, worked as a teaching assistant at CCA, and then secured her first stint in Italy working for Lorenza De’ Medici in Tuscany. Following her “enlightened year of 1989,” she moved back to San Francisco to work for Gianni Fassio of Palio d’Asti and the famous Blue Fox restaurant.

Bridget’s days in San Francisco in the 1990s provided multiple Italian connections, including cooking for Lorenza on her KQED (PBS) television show, and meeting the owner of Vinalta Winery, Licio Gomiero, and his cousin Diego. In 1993, Diego invited her to spend a month in the Veneto cooking at his well-known restaurant. In 1995, she left San Francisco again to cook with Diego in Italy for a year. (Dame Cathy Conner joined her that summer.)

Following her Italian engagement, Bridget decided to return home to Seattle. Here, she worked for Carmine, Ciro, and eventually started teaching in the culinary program at the Seattle Art Institute.

This led to a 17-year stint, which ended in 2014. During this period, she also had side jobs at KCTS (PBS) and Seattle Cooks, which led to work with the legendary Mauny Kaseburg at the Aspen Wine & Food Festival, along with lead jobs with the New York City and South Beach Wine and Food Festivals.

“My goal always was to stay in the industry and have fun, but also have a life,” she says. To that end, she has also raced sailboats extensively, played competitive squash, volunteered for the America’s Cup, raised a family, and earned her master’s degree. And… Game. Set. Match. You’ll also find her on the tennis court five days a week! #LesDamesdEscoffier #LesDamesSeattle

Profile by Karen Binder

Nicole began her entrepreneurial career at the ripe old age of 13 when she convinced seven women in her Laguna Beach neighborhood to let her make dinner for their families once a week. Armed with two books, Betty Crocker’s Cooking for Kids and the Larousse Gastronomique, she proceeded to plan, cook, serve and clean up in their homes, and thus commenced her future lifelong metier.

In her early 20s she hooked up with our deceased, beloved Dame Susan Kaufman who was living in Laguna Beach at the time, and the two of them formed a catering company that was successful but short-lived and sowed the seeds for an enduring friendship bringing Nicole to Seattle 30 years later.

Realizing in her 20s becoming a chef might require training and credentials, Nicole attended culinary school in Paris commencing a 2-year stint as a chef in France. Upon returning to the U.S. in her early 30s, her quest for chef work led her to become director of catering at the Los Angeles Music Center, at the time the largest catering company in the U.S. She masterminded catering for the 1984 Summer Olympics in Los Angeles, the Academy Awards (five times!), and dinner for Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth of Great Britain, but realizing the toll this career took on her, left after leading the company to triple its sales in five years.

Married to the love of her life, composer Ami Aloni, and having a stable and supportive husband and homelife, Nicole had the freedom to start her own catering company which she led successfully for 13 years, until the death of her husband. She then wrote and published her first book, Secrets from a Caterer’s Kitchen, and became one of Sur La Table’s celebrity chefs. In this role, she traveled to all the retail culinary chain’s teaching kitchens every season (basically four times each year) for five years.

Nicole ultimately moved to Seattle 15 years ago, where she continued to write cookbooks and nurtured a freelance writing job with Sam’s Club. After years of this rigorous and exhausting schedule, Nicole decided it was time to contribute more to society and to pursue something she deemed more important for her: helping people realize their life’s goals. To this end she attended school to become a certified life coach and, in 2017, went to work for Capital One Bank as a life coach in their free program coaching people in every strata of life. After a very happy and successful career at Capital One, Covid forced the shutdown of the program in December 2020.

The months since then have been spent planning and packing for her imminent move to her primal home of Laguna Beach. Nicole has said that one of the most pleasurable parts of her life in Seattle has been being a member of les Dames d’Escoffier, a group of accomplished entrepreneurial woman with whom she feels great comraderie. We will miss her, her warmth, humor, culinary prowess and contributions to our group.

Profile by Karen Binder

The culinary career of Dame Sabrina Tinsley, co-owner and chef at Seattle’s iconic Italian restaurant, La Spiga Osteria, has followed an unusual and circuitous path. Growing up in the Alaskan wilderness with her physician father and three siblings, Sabrina raced sled dogs, went fishing, camping, and collected firewood for the family. She attributes her capacity for adventure and hard work to those early years in the 49th State.

Also setting the stage for her career, the important women in Sabrina’s life were all oriented around cooking and feeding their families. She describes her mom as a true homemaker and an amazing cook who taught her kids how to cook, garden, preserve, and bake. Her grandma, for whom food was a big part of life, grew up on a sugarcane plantation in the town of Verdunville, Louisiana, named after her family, and was the product of a French landowner and a slave woman.

While living in Alaska, her parents split, and in 1985, Sabrina, her siblings, and mom moved to Flint, Michigan, where she finished high school, and then attended Michigan State University graduating in 1992 with a French minor. Summers between college years took her back to Alaska where she ran the Mountain View Bed and Breakfast. With both The Cake Bible by Rose Levy Barenbaum and Glorious Food by Christopher Idone in hand, Sabrina spent summers baking bread and practicing cooking skills by making meals for B&B guests. Returning to Michigan for her final year at MSU, Sabrina arranged to complete her French language credits in Tours, France, planning to travel studying European languages, cultures, and foods.

While working for a year in Salzburg, Austria, she had a chance encounter with a charming Italian, Pietro Borghesi, destined to become both her husband and business partner. Wanting her to join his life and to understand his culture, he lured Sabrina to his native Italy where the two of them opened and ran several successful businesses selling the Emilia-Romagna specialty Piadina, one of la Spiga’s best acclaimed offerings.

After several years living and working in Italy, the two decided to head to Seattle where Sabrina’s sister was living. Together, they opened La Spiga Osteria in 1998, bringing authentic northern Italian cuisine to Seattle diners. In 2006, they moved into their current welcoming, large space, and in 2010, became sole owners of La Spiga.

Many of the restaurant’s staples–prosciutto di Parma, Parmigiano-Reggiano and balsamic vinegar from Modena–are imported from Italy. Other ingredients are locally and sustainably sourced, and pasta is made fresh daily.

At the start of the Covid pandemic in 2020, Sabrina’s 16-year-old son jumped in to wash dishes and work the line, while her 19-year-old daughter continued as pastry chef. Sabrina tells how fortunate they were to be in a good financial position a year ago, and, with two rounds of PPP as well as enormous customer support, they have stayed profitable the past year.

Active outside the kitchen as well, Sabrina donates time as mentor to aspiring culinary professionals and has contributed time and resources to diversity programs advocating for female chefs and chefs of color. She has been included in many local cookbooks, interviewed on radio and television, and was an Iron Chef contender against Bobby Flay. A certified Italian wine specialist, she was chosen to participate in both the James Beard Foundation’s Women’s Entrepreneurial Leadership program and the Culinary Institute of America’s enrichment and Innovation Program. Earning a scholarship from Women Chefs and Restaurateurs, she interned at the Cooking Lab of Modernist Cuisine. She also serves on the Foundation Board of community Roots Housing, and co-chairs the Diversity, Equity and Inclusion committee for Les Dames d’Escoffier Seattle. We are thrilled to have her as a fellow Dame!

Profile by Judith H. Dern

Craving a global food experience? You don’t need a passport to savor the flavors and tastes served in simmering dishes from the Congo to Somalia, Nigeria and Kenya, from Cambodia to Argentina at Spice Bridge in Tukwila Village–just south in Seattle’s backyard. In the thick of these global culinary adventures is Dame Kara Martin, a member of Les Dames Seattle since 2020.

As program director, she manages the flow and staffing rotations for the four Spice Bridge retail stalls at Spice Bridge and coordinates participants’ use of the onsite commercial kitchen along with classes in business management skills, food safety, assessing food costs, permits and licensing requirements.

The newly built sunlit and air-conditioned food hall, which opened in October 2020, is operated by the nonprofit Global to Local organization based in SeaTac and is the base of its Food Innovation Network (FIN) program. This visionary program started in 2010 to provide subsidized space and training to help Immigrant entrepreneurs–exclusively women–test their food business concepts. The concept builds on food as a connection, a catalyst for creating community and building food security. At Spice Bridge, take-away meals along with nearby outdoor seating in Tukwila Village have worked well as a community hub for cooks and diners during the past year’s Covid-19 restrictions. The Tukwila Village Farmers’ Market on Wednesday afternoons selling produce grown by refugees and immigrants adds to the location’s role as a community food resource.

Kara’s path to crucial community culinary efforts started when she worked in food bank systems, learning about the inequities and poverty of food access leading to more poverty. During this period, she read Sweet Charity (1998) by Janet Poppendieck, which shifted her view of food systems fostered from growing up in the agricultural heartland of Iowa and Colorado. Her graduate degree from the University of Washington in urban planning focused on food planning systems and how food reaches people. Spurred by her work and advisory participation for a half dozen cities through Public Health Seattle and King County (PHSKC) contracts, she has assessed and advised local governments regarding the impact of food access on neighborhoods. In 2017, she started as a consultant for FIN for its pilot project and says, “I fell in love with the work and the people and moved into the program director role.”

Building the two-year program was about more than having an available kitchen, since it took a while to build the Spice Bridge facility. It was about support and training, testing a business concept. Currently there are 13 businesses representing 17 individuals.

“We work with participants six to 12 months before they get into the kitchen, and they first must complete a 12-week business training course,” Kara says. “We also wanted to be culturally sensitive to food traditions and not Americanize the recipes. Dishes with super spicy sauces can have the sauce served on the side.” Critical to the incubator concept, the food wasn’t to be seen as “cheap” because it was indigenous or prepared by immigrants, along the lines of comparing haute cuisine French vs. African or Asian. “Their amazing food is art,” notes Kara, “and we didn’t want to compromise this for a second.”

Bridging language barriers with Instagram has worked well, along with Zoom orientation sessions. Some participants pursue catering, while others produce packaged goods. The four kiosks in the food hall are each shared by two businesses, in rotating sequence Tuesday through Saturday, and with shorter hours on Sunday. The food hall allows connecting with vendors and a valuable opportunity to build community.

The super exciting news: The first participants of the Food Innovation Network are graduating this June! They will move from the Spice Bridge space and find new community paths for their businesses. Tip: Look for Seatango in Seattle’s Lake City neighborhood offering a delicious selection of authentic dishes from Argentina in its new brick and mortar location.

Our members are among the movers and shakers around greater Seattle and throughout the Pacific Northwest. They are restauranteurs, bakers, caterers, sommeliers, winemaker, culinary inventors, food writers and authors, cooking teachers and so much more. While they come from diverse backgrounds and work in an intriguing range of careers, they are all dedicated to a single cause: supporting other women within the world of food, wine and hospitality, including those just starts (or changing) their culinary careers.