Senior Account Manager

Vanessa's lifelong interest in gastronomy evolved into a commitment to sustainable food and agriculture.  Equally comfortable with sharp knives, laptops, and smart phones, she’s combined her cooking background with an education in Marketing and Communications to build a career that utilizes her skills at the stove and at the keyboard. Prior to joining HavenBMedia, she worked closely with Haven at Straus Communications, where FishChoice.com, O Organics, Bright Green, Bon Appétit Management Co and Equator Coffee benefitted from her expertise.
She's a food issues blogger, writing on the intersection between culinary pleasures, strong regional food systems and farm labor justice for CivilEats.com and EcoSalon.com. She’s also a cookbook author and recipe developer, specializing in artisan foods and sustainability. Her second book, DIY Delicious: Recipes and Ideas for Simple Food From Scratch will be published in Fall 2010 by Chronicle Books. Her first book, Heirloom Beans: Great recipes for dips and spreads, soups and stews, salads and salsas, and much more from Rancho Gordo, co-authored with farmer Steve Sando, was published in Fall 2008 to critical acclaim. She also worked on the award-winning Fish Forever: The Definitive Guide to Understanding, Selecting, and Preparing Healthy, Delicious, and Environmentally Sustainable Seafood by Paul Johnson, owner of Monterey Fish Market and national expert on sustainable seafood, and The Jimtown Store Cookbook with Carrie Brown. With a background in the restaurant business dating back to her teens, Vanessa performed every restaurant job there is, while working her way toward a Bachelor’s of Science in Marketing Communications at San Francisco State University. She’s also worked as a chef at Jimtown Store in Healdsburg, California. and Headlands Center for the Arts, honing her culinary skills in the early days when locavore was a new concept.
For over five years, she was Marketing Manager for the Northern California and Pacific Northwest Regions of Whole Foods Market, working with current HavenBMedia colleague Jolyn Bibb.
Vanessa is an active advocate for food justice in Oakland, CA. She’s gotten her hands dirty building gardens for City Slicker Farms, she occasionally contributes to the Food First newsletter, People Putting Food First, and she’s a monthly sustainer of The People’s Grocery. When she’s not communicating, cooking or writing, she works hard on her Spanish language studies in Mexico, Guatemala or San Francisco’s Mission district. She lives in Oakland California.