Jackie Reale, of the blog Marin Mama Cooks, believes food is nature’s medicine. She’s also quite literally a Marin mama who cooks.
What do you do? I’m a certified natural holistic chef and certified health and vitality coach. I have a website (MarinMamaCooks.com), where I create recipes for optimal health and bring joy and pleasure back to eating clean whole food.
Where can we find you when you’re not at work? In Baltimore Canyon or hiking on Ring Mountain behind my house. But most days, you can find me in the aisles at Good Earth in Mill Valley.
Where do you live? Corte Madera.
How long have you lived in Marin? I moved here from Minneapolis in the fall of 1997.
If you had to convince someone how awesome Marin is, where would you take them? To Baltimore Canyon to hike amongst the Redwoods, and to Citrine for a crystal activation yoga class with my favorite teacher, Karyn Holland.
What’s one thing Marin is missing? I’d love more casual and clean restaurants with organic local and seasonal ingredients, grass-fed and pasture-raised meats, and creative and tasty options for those who can’t have dairy or gluten. Also, maybe a mocktail bar for the teens and adults who are not drinking? Could be fun!
What’s one bit of advice you’d share with your fellow Marinites? To pause before every decision that’s in front of you and pick the one that sounds fun and is a YES. And if it’s a maybe, then it’s a NO. We all have way too many “shoulds” on our plates.
If you could ask anyone to join you at dinner, whom would you invite? My father, as he passed away before he got to know my kids and my husband. My dad taught me the love of cooking and being and playing in nature. I miss him.
What’s some advice you wish you knew 20 years ago? To know that I have all the answers I need inside of me, and I just have to slow down and listen to those whispers.
What’s something that 20 years from now will seem cringeworthy? How addicted everyone is to watching life on a screen versus being out there experiencing life directly.
Big question. What’s one thing you’d do to change the world? Teach people how to connect to themselves, their own intuition and guidance when it comes to food, health and life. People are always searching Google for answers when they could just search themselves.
Keep up with Reale at @marinmamacooks and marinmamacooks.com.
Nish Nadaraja was on the founding team at Yelp and is at @IveGotNissues.
