About Annie
Annie is a native of Southeastern Wisconsin. She lived around the Midwest for nearly 15 years before resettling in her original corner of the Dairy State. She’s been happily planted in Milwaukee since 2000. During that time, she’s contributed to coaxing the food and dining scene into the exciting hub for local food, craft beverages, artisanal products, and adventurous eating that it is today. Annie believes Milwaukee is a destination for great food, drinks, and the arts with incredible potential to bloom and thrive.
Annie’s been closely connected to her food supply since her youth in Racine, WI. Her dad brought home eggs and milk from a local farm; they grew a modest crop of vegetables in the backyard (“I remember my first “farmers’ market:” pulling carrots and other veggies out of the garden and trying to sell them at our rummage sale.”) Her influences fluctuated throughout her formative years as she lived in areas with much less sustainable agriculture and few small family farms. But her dedication to healthy, local produce has resurged since returning to her beautiful home state.
Her muse is her grandmother who grew up on a small farm--about 20 miles south of where Annie now calls home—and made her career as a corporate cafeteria manager/cook (an impressive position for a mother of two in the 1950s and 60s). Her gramma carried that love of food into her home; Annie inherited this gene. Gramma Lucille was the backbone of family gatherings and always made enough to feed an army. Preparing and sharing food continues to be one of Annie’s love languages. She drew from her gramma’s example and observed her mother who cooked in the age of casseroles. In high school Annie wanted to be an artist; she had dreams of going to interior design school or being an animator. But shifted her creative focus as the last child at home; she found an open kitchen so began cooking for her parents each evening and learning from her mistakes (a head of garlic is much different than a clove of garlic.)
Entering Purdue University, she began studying Dietetics and Nutrition, Fitness, and Health, a double major that slowly evolved into Food and Nutrition in Business, which gave her more room to explore writing, art, and photography courses. She became a freelance food and wellness journalist during her junior year in college via the Purdue Exponent and the Outpost Exchange (200+ miles back north). The last years of college, while working in her first restaurant job she became intrigued by how food brought people together and found the social aspect of it–encouraging people to enjoy food together–far more fascinating than writing diet plans and telling people how to abstain.
After completing her B.S., she decided to explore the gastronomical and anthropological side of food, relocating to downtown Milwaukee for two years of culinary training, during which she worked in various restaurants and food establishments in Milwaukee to solidify her love of food, wine, and pastry arts. She continued to freelance for the Exchange for 12 years writing food and wellness features, restaurant reviews, and her own column “The Budget Gourmet” until the journal ceased to print in 2011.
During the transition from her college training in the institutional food world to the restaurant realm, circa 2000, Annie became interested in local agriculture. She was introduced to friends with an organic farm nearby where she volunteered for a couple of summers making the connection to the soil and her food source. She also appreciated getting back to her family’s roots so took a hiatus from the restaurants of Milwaukee in 2003 and spent eight months in an agricultural literacy program at Michael Fields Agricultural Institute in East Troy, WI as the chef intern. During that time, she connected with farmers and producers around the region and learned about biodynamic and organic agriculture. She also earned her Master Food Preserver certificate from the UW-Extension and co-founded Slow Food Wisconsin Southeast (Slow Food WISE).
Since then she’s continued to cultivate her interest in local food systems. Annie worked in the restaurant industry for a total of 15 years in various capacities, most recently as a pastry chef for several years. She spent most of a decade as a worker share at Pinehold Gardens and Farm in Oak Creek. She stays connected with local food organizations and producers through cooking demonstrations and events. Since 2003, Annie’s taught a variety of cooking classes for adults, children, and families focusing on food preservation, from-scratch, vegetarian, gluten-free, and low-waste/no-waste instruction. Annie has also spent several years as a private freelance food preservation specialist at a 17th century heirloom farm in Fredonia, WI.
In 2018 life moved Annie to pursue her yoga teaching certification to move into another realm of wellness. She earned her 200-hour RYT certificate at the Yoga Center for Healthy Living in Brighton, MI. Since then Annie has primarily taught yoga to adults through the Milwaukee Recreation Department. She also completed a 16-hour CYT certificate and teaches yoga at a local Montessori school. Seasonally you will find her leading “adult playtime” at Partner Yoga In Walker’s Point.
In 2022 Annie expanded her wellness offerings to include Health Coaching. She completes her coursework through the Institute of Integrative Nutrition in February of 2023. With her Mid-Course Certification, she is already seeing clients and beginning to help others create sustainable changes in lifestyle and behavior.
She is committed to building community in her beloved city through volunteering at the Riverwest Food Pantry where she does regular cooking demonstrations, the Eco-Justice Center in Racine County where she continues to broaden her garden/farm/sustainability knowledge, Tricklebee Café in Sherman Park where she preps and cooks monthly, and Next Door Foundation on the city’s north side where she reads to pre-K children in the early literacy program and teaches yoga to staff members.
Annie is an active runner, acroyogini, dancer (with Panadanza Dance Company’s student company), capoeirista (with Capoeira Nagô Milwaukee) and surdo player (with Milwaukee’s lively Brazilian drum troupe Samba da Vida). She also enjoys keeping a substantial urban garden, writing, camping, hiking, reading, traveling, and practicing amateur photography.
She savors time with her daughter and family of friends. Her current personal food projects are getting her daughter involved in meal preparation and more efficiently growing great tomatoes in a small space. Her current movement projects are dancing every day; returning to choreography (if even for a personal project); and working with a movement mentor to stay agile, challenged, and improve injury defense. Annie is excited to continue building community as she shares her food and movement knowledge and energy with you.