I love collaborating with folks near and far. Here are some examples of ways we can work together:

Events, Experiences, and Retreats

I love building collaborative events with partners in the hospitality industry, event planners, cultural heritage organizations, nonprofits, and more. These include pop ups, interactive cultural heritage experiences, curated exhibitions in tandem with meals, talks, menus/guidance for milestone events, and more.

I work with other coaches and event leaders to bring culinary experiences ranging from mindful eating to collective culinary experiences and wildcrafting to their workshops and retreats. 

And, I am in the planning stages of my own retreat space, which will offer an expansive, interconnected, and creative space to help each of us tap into the magic of the everyday. I can’t wait to share it with you!

I have all kinds of exciting ideas for events we might do together, check out the events link and speaking link to learn more. 

Fermentation Projects

These can take the form of workshops, one-on-one guidance (both remote and in person), custom made ferments, and research support. Fermentation is one of our most powerful, and most ancient, food preservation technologies, and unlocks new flavors, health benefits, and cost savings. I would love to help you begin or grow your fermentation practice!

Consulting for Research and Creative Projects

Food is absolutely pivotal to every experience we encounter as humans, both individually and communally. Our cultural traditions, family and community structures, and health (among other things) are all heavily intertwined with food.

I use my interdisciplinary background to create a big-picture understanding of the world you are building or hoping to recreate with your project, offering research-driven feedback that engages my passion for food and its power in supporting storytelling.

This includes but is not limited to! working with filmmakers as a research consultant and set dresser for food and food-related items, offering research guidance and feedback for museum exhibits and programming, and offering research support to visual artists using food as an element in their work.

Creative Coaching and Classes

I have years of experience as a writer and a writing coach, and have expanded my practice to include creative coaching more holistically. While I primarily work with food writers and creatives in culinary spaces (e.g. chefs who also have a visual arts practice), I work with creatives of all stripes and all experience levels.

I offer virtual and in-person coaching and classes, like Writing Playground, a generative writing workshop focused on tapping into the playful side of building a sustainable writing practice. 

Beginning in 2024, I’ll also be offering holistic creative coaching, where we draw on different creative practices, from cooking to drawing to making music, to find your unique creative fingerprint and help you build a sustainable, joyful practice to tap into and expand your talents. My hope is this will support the individual creative practice of each person I work with, and will connect to the collective creative and culinary experiences I offer either at my home or online.

To find out more, or join my waitlist, please reach out to [email protected] or contact me through this link. 

Research Services

I have a doctorate in Library & Information Science, an extensive scholarly publication record, and over a decade of experience researching culinary history, including acquiring, curating, and building educational programs around rare culinary materials.

I love to put my research skills to work for other people’s projects! You can hire me to scour archives and locate materials connected to your area of interest, as well as write up research findings. I am a skilled public speaker and am happy to present at public programs and other events as well.

Menus for Restaurants and Event Planners

Do you need help making a historic menu for your dinner party? Curious what ingredients to include in a dish you want to make for a few friends? Want to learn a new skill, or have a few folks over to learn together? I’m available for hire as a consultant to build your menus, help with planning your gathering, cooking instruction, and more.

Community Building

I am always eager to collaborate with others who are doing cool work to strengthen our communities, whether that is in Atlanta or elsewhere. If you have an idea for collaborating and are working with community gardens, nonprofits, arts organizations, food justice organizations, libraries, or any other community building organization, I would love to hear from you.

Cookbook and Recipe Collections

I have a decade and a half of experience in libraries and museums. My PhD is in Library and Information Science, and I have worked in a range of capacities from director-level work as a rare books curator to creating finding aids, designing outreach, and reference and instruction with rare books and archives. I have taught graduate courses in Library & Information Science since 2011, and continue to teach and stay current in the field. 

Much of my work focuses on historic materials and (you guessed it) food. I offer the following services in this area: Rare book collection appraisals, guidance on collecting in a certain area (subject, time period, etc.), assessments of archival collections, and preservation advice.

I also offer preservation advice, collection organization, and guidance on interpreting recipes for family recipe and cookbook collections.

Your Personal Food History

I love helping people learn more about their own food heritage, and can offer reading lists, recipes, and other assistance as applicable to help you discover the foods that would have been eaten by your ancestors in America and around the world. 

I work hard to point people in the direction of resources written by experts within the cultures you’re connecting with, and to refer clients to those experts whenever needed.

This service includes extensive research into both food and its cultural contexts, along with recipes and food preparation guidance to help clients prepare foods similar to those their ancestors would have eaten.

Ready to connect? Have an idea for another way we can work together? I’m all ears: let’s talk!

Who is Root for?

Chefs + hospitality industry:

I address practical issues in kitchens by teaching chefs how to use fermentation and other techniques to reduce food waste. I also support the creative side of culinary work through conceptualizing and researching historic dishes, providing fermentation training, and offering research and writing services.

Writers

I support writers’ projects by offering meticulous food history and fermentation research, and have served as a source in many local and national publications.

Filmmakers, visual artists, + other creative professionals:

I provide research and on-site services, including conceptualizing and creating historically-appropriate foods, offering set dec for food-related spaces (kitchen, dining area, etc)., and providing research services.

I work on projects set in the future and modern day as well as the past, and use my training to inform realistic, meticulously researched results such as(e.g. consulting on low-tech, historical preparation methods for a post-apocalyptic film).

Cultural heritage professionals:

I have over a decade of experience in libraries and museums, doing everything from directing a museum to conceptualizing and curating exhibits, programming, artifact-centric teaching, and in-depth research. I am proud to still be involved in cultural heritage work and to help my colleagues make their exhibits and programs a success.

Home cooks:

I love to teach brand new and seasoned cooks alike! I offer fermentation and food history workshops, individual and small group cooking classes, and private chef services for your home meals and special events.

You can learn along with me through Root’s classes and membership, by signing up for my newsletter or Patreon, or contact me to schedule private lessons.

Genealogists + researchers:

Examining your subject area through food opens up new depths of understanding and a rich appreciation of the past and present. I provide research services that serve as a complement to your work, for example by taking larger social and geographic information about the communities you are studying, and using it to help you understand what was being eaten, how it was prepared, and how you can approximate it at home.

Event planners:

I assist with events large and small, including weddings, private and corporate parties, and more. I help event planners engage in storytelling through food with local and wild dishes, custom-designed fermented foods and recipes, or historic dishes to fit the event’s theme.

I also help with recreating historic settings, and with conceptualizing fantasy foods like a mead from the lost island of Atlantis, as well as strictly historical ones.

You!

I’m excited for us to find ways to work together. Please don’t hesitate to reach out.