autumn olive food works &
chef GABBY ARON
Homestyle Nourishment, Farm and Garden to table
Food for your mind, body, spirit, planet, and community.
Autumn Olive Food Works offers wholesome and delicious menus through customized chef services, specialty catering, cooking classes, events, and more.
"Food and cuisine are a culmination of human and ecological harmony, evolutionary abundance, culture, innovation and creativity, which I am excited to participate in."
Through food, we have the ability to interact and positively affect our local ecologies, communities, and economies, as well as deeply nourish our minds, bodies, and spirits. This is sustainability and intergenerational responsibility.
My goal as a chef, grower, and educator is to honor traditional food ways, ecology, artistry, and wellness, as well as healing and inspiration through food. I specialize in using locally grown and unique ingredients, I have cultivated meaningful relationships with my local farm community over the past 12 years, and come from a diverse cultural background, which inform my menus and services. With over a decade of industry experience in agriculture, culinary arts, education, and event production, I love embarking on new challenges, and working on the ground with my community. Food is my way of making the world a better place and striving for well being "
-Chef Gabby
"Chef Gabby Aron is a first generation Sicilian-Jewish American, born in Bensonhurst Brooklyn, of a food loving family and community. Her love of cooking began at home, and in the diners and pizzerias in her local neighborhoods. Food was the greatest reward and comfort, as a child of hard working parents and relatives, food and music was always the center of celebration and togetherness. Her relatives grew vegetables in their urban backyards, which gave her a taste for unique, quality ingredients. Chef Gabby began her food career as a farmer in 2010 after learning the dangerous social and ecological impacts of industrial farming. Since then she has worked in every aspect of the food industry, as a farm hand, cook, teacher, CSA and farm store coordinator, micro-farm manager, event planner, until founding her business Autumn Olive Food Works in 2016. Autumn Olive Food Works is a hyper local specialty catering, personal chef, and cooking class, and event business highlighting locally grown ingredients, global inspiration, and nostalgic reverence, in order to create meaningful and nourishing food experiences. She has an abundant home garden from which she uses for her business, and has fostered strong relationships with local producers for over a decade. "
Background:
WWOOF Nova Scotia (2010) Arizona (2012)
*Co-created RIPE (Rutgers Initiative for Permaculture Education) organizing students in hands on workshops, forest garden installation and maintenance, and educational field trips. 2011-'13
*Created and taught cooking and gardening activities at the Unitarian Montessori School, East Brunswick 2011-'13
*Created and taught children's garden activities at Rutgers Gardens 2010-'11
*4H New Brunswick environmental club leader 2011, YMCA Raritan Valley, 2009-2010
*Americorps service member at ELIJAH'S PROMISE: CSA coordinator, Kitchen garden manager, sustainability educator 2011-'13
*Micro farm manager and floral arrangements at The Ryland Inn, 2019
*Chef and instructor at THE FARM COOKING SCHOOL, Titusville, NJ 2018-2020
*Farm store manager and farmer at Cherry Valley Cooperative, 2018
