This project began with obsession. A nagging desire to travel anywhere and find the pulse of what makes it unique. Food and culture naturally intersect and also provide a sugary lens into deeper subjects like food systems, agribusiness, land usage, and fundamentally: who we are and what we value.

I’ve worked in factory farm chicken houses in the American South, learned from master cheese makers in the mouth-watering Loire Valley, plucked salmon and rose petals with commercial fishing women in Alaska, and nearly lost the feeling in my feet reef net fishing in Hana Bay, Maui.

My mission is to seek out the best quality ingredients while also addressing the layers of bullshit that hold us back from actually improving anything in our world of food.

Co-founder of Iron Way Entertainment, I have produced & directed digital series for Fortune 500 companies and NGO’s since 2004. I’ve done extensive interviews on art & technology with visionaries like Ed Catmull (President of Pixar), created a wild campaign with NRDC to engage millennials on environmental issues, and conversed with girls fighting for their voice after being genitally mutilated. (Before film: I was a personal assistant to NYC’s biggest nightclub owner, and those stories are strictly reserved for whiskey and cigarettes.)

I made my feature directorial debut with Big Dream, which follows seven ambitious young women around the world who will stop at nothing to achieve their Big Dream.

Produced in partnership with Microsoft, UN Women, White House Office of Science & Technology, UNICEF, and National Science Foundation— Big Dream was selected in the American Film Showcase in partnership with the US State Department. I had the incredible honor to travel to communities around the world to screen my film. From villages in northern Zambia, the jungles of Peru, ancient cities in Algeria, guarded communities in Haiti, and neighborhoods up and down the vastness of Thailand- I exchanged with young women of all cultures on our common goal: Girl Power and Gender Equality.

Once upon a time I was selected by Interview Magazine’s “Top 50 Under 30 To Watch” (where my lo-fi photo was embarrassingly wedged between a sparkling Anne Hathaway and a handsome John Krasinski) and Glamour Magazine’s “50 Women Doing Great Green Things.” I look like crap in both of them but would gladly show you a Harper’s Bazaar shot when I guest DJ’d a Save the Music Foundation event. I wore Betsey Johnson. Played Deceptacon. Maybe stole drugs. It was amazing.

I was kicked out of high school at 17 after growing up in a small, agriculturally focused, albeit racist town of 200 on the Missouri River in Napoleon, Missouri. Although we were in the heartland of food production; no trend existed about giving a shit where your food came from. You can say ‘short man syndrome’ is naturally ingrained.

When I’m not on the road: I’m either dreaming about being on the road or running naked through my current home state of Oregon. In the field, with no cameras, of course. (maybe)

Find your ideal pairing of food and music at this year’s Curation and join us at the table for Brunch and/or Dinner!