Chef Marvin Woods
Chef Marvin Woods is an Emmy® Award-nominated television host, celebrity chef and author of lauded cookbooks, Home Plate Cooking and The New Low Country. He is recognized by fans and peers alike by his infectious personality, signature bandana and wildly inventive take on food rooted in northern Africa, South America, the Caribbean and the Low Country. His healthy, quick-food has been regularly featured in national publications, including O Magazine, Food & Wine, Southern Living and many more.
Chef Marvin was recently chosen as the first chef to kick off Michelle Obama's Let's Move! cooking series to help busy families create nutritious and affordable meals on www.letsmove.gov. For more than seven years, Chef Marvin has been traveling the country educating and motivating kids and parents through his program, Droppin' Knowledge with Chef Marvin Woods. The national program focuses on a positive way to reduce childhood obesity and other children's health issues.
Chef Marvin recently opened a new fast-casual restaurant, FunXion, in Washington, DC, as executive chef and partner. Serving common American favorites, like pizza, tacos and burgers, with a healthy twist, FunXion menu items feature at least one Superfood ingredient, and are made without a drop of oil, grain of salt or added sugar. Chef Marvin believes that food can be prepared in a whole and healthy way, without sacrificing enjoyment and flavor.
Traveling internationally for appearances and cooking demonstrations, Chef Marvin consistently draws audiences of 200+. He has served as guest chef at the James Beard House, been featured as a celebrity chef at The Pillsbury Bake Off, the Miami Wine & Food Festival and Charlotte Shout, and selected as a judge for The Southern Living Cook Off.
A 25-year veteran in the hospitality and restaurant industry, Chef Marvin began his career at Harrah's Trump at Trump Plaza, Rockefeller Center, Seagrill, Windows on the World, Arizona 206, Café Beulah and Café Orbit. He also has lead the kitchens of Savannah Restaurant, The National Hotel, Hollywood Prime at the Westin Diplomat and M. Woods.
Chef Marvin is currently working on a line of spice blends and sauces, travels the country on behalf of the American Heart Association and other healthy organizations, and is actively involved in the Atlanta community where he resides with his wife and two children. For more information, please visit www.marvinwoods.net and www.letsmove.gov.
Chef Jennifer Bushman
For years we have been talking about bringing the family to the table for dinner. Whether you're cooking a gourmet meal, cooking with your kids or eating on the go, rest assured that Jennifer Bushman has a quick and easy solution to help you. Jennifer, at her core, is a mom that needs to provide solutions to get dinner on the table for her own family. She found that this message resonated with other moms and that the questions and concerns were the same no matter where you lived or what background you came from. Armed with that information, she founded her cooking school, authored three cookbooks, and more importantly she has established a brand that focuses on solutions for family meals. From this came "Make it Easy," a program syndicated by Gannett Media that resonates with families. Jennifer also creates content for many well known companies such as Unilever. In the spring of 2009, she created a Family Fun recipe Booklet in conjunction with Unilever's Making Life Better campaign. This campaign included recipe development, web segments, radio media tours, satellite media tours and a 10 city media tour. In addition, she has worked with grocery store chains such as Dierbergs, Central Market, Scolari's, Warehouse Market, Sak and Save and many more. Utilizing her understanding of individual cooking and buying habitats, she has created buying, programming and in-house promotions for the stores. From the suburbs to urban areas, Jennifer has traveled across the country to understand the uniqueness and individuality of each area and what the consumer's food focus is.
Armed with this knowledge she motivates the family into action while including the pertinent messaging for the brand. In addition to her many partnerships, she is one of the unique talents that is aware of the availability of ingredients and products in every region of the country. Jennifer has been able to create content for the "Make it Easy" App. A series of downloadable applications that do more than teach you how to cook, they show you tips and techniques that simply "Make it Easy". Her unique approach has won her nominations for the International Association of Culinary Professionals (IACP) Avocational Cooking School Award of Excellence, the IACP/Julia Child Electronic Media Award and the James Beard Foundation Broadcast Media Award. She also was nominated for the 2002 IACP Cooking Teacher of the Year.
What's for Dinner?
Cooking expert Jennifer Bushman walks you through her “Hands Off Tomato Sauce."
If you find yourself struggling daily over the question, “What’s for Dinner Tonight?”, you can find this recipe and more to make the answer to that fun and easy.
