CHEF-PRENEUR & MICRO-GREENS FOUNDER ALLISON SOSNA (Forkly: @chefallisosna)
“Using it as a Chef, Forkly is a great tool for market research: to see what people want and where they’re getting it!”
As many of you know, Forkly recently hosted a DC happy hour at Hank’s Oyster Bar with Chef Alli Sosna. We wanted to meet some of our wonderful DC users, connect with fabulous local food bloggers & new friends, and most importantly, help raise awareness for Chef Alli’s most recent project, Micro-Greens: a program to teach kids (and their families!) to cook great, healthy food on a SNAP (food stamp) budget.
You can follow her culinary adventures on Forkly and learn more about her fantastic projects below, but before you do anything…there’s only 10 days left to donate… so take a look and help her launch Micro-Greens! The money donated will help buy aprons, support food costs and menu planning costs, pay salary for two part-time workers in the program, purchase basic equipment needs (bowls, spoons, spatulas, knives, cutting boards), and more!
More about Chef Alli:
Chef Allison Sosna is bringing healthy eating to the forefront thanks to her continuing love affair with cooking. Born in Brooklyn, NY and raised in the farmlands of New Jersey, Chef Sosna eventually landed in Washington D.C. at American University. It was then, during her years as a rower, that she realized how important food was to the body and that it impacted not only how you felt, but how you performed.
This led Sosna to Italy to learn more about food and eventually to culinary school. She spent time working at Barton Seaver, The Inn at Little Washington, a Relais & Chateau property, and Dean & Deluca where she prepared meals for retail operations and large-scale catering projects.
Fast forward a few years – Sosna became a part of the culinary team at DC Central Kitchen, as an Executive Chef to aid in overseeing school food and catering services. This may have been the tipping point in Sosna’s career as from it, she created PINE Benefit Corporation.
Pine’s mission is to break the mold and do something different by creating positive change in the community using food-service related ventures. Most recently Pine launched
“Cooking with Alli,” an online radio show (Tune in on Sundays, 6-7pm EST) on how to buy, eat, and cook healthy and see how others are doing so in the community. A percentage of Pine’s profits will go to launching
Micro-Greens as well.
Along the way, Chef Alli has worked and talked with leaders from First Lady Michelle Obama to Chefs Alice Waters and Jamie Oliver about the state of food in America; competed on Food Network’s Thanksgiving episode of CHOPPED (2011); and received local awards and scholarships to move forward with her work to help promote healthy eating in American homes and schools.
To meet her in person, stop by the DC Green Festival on Sept 30, where Chef Alli will be speaking at 2pm, “Snap into the SNAP Program: Healthy Cooking on a Budget.” You can also learn more about Chef Alli’s endeavors on Twitter at @ChefAlliSosna and @MicroGreensDC–in the meantime, have a look of some of her delicious tastes below and follow her on Forkly…we know we’ll be watching closely as Micro-Greens, Cooking with Alli, and Pine take off!
The festival was held at Mile High Station, which made for the perfect venue. The great space allowed for over 875 bacon and beer enthusiasts to take shelter from the cold day and warm up with creative and insanely-delicious bacon dishes and beer!
