hi i'm mandy pryor and welcome to spotlight on pittsburgh spotlight on pittsburgh is a program about pittsburgh both fascinating people and what they do to make pittsburgh an amazing place to live and work when we return you'll meet jeff  witz a chef turned health coach who practices dining with a deeper meaning after that will introduce lindsay kramer of food by lindsay who's tasty food creations have been popping up at the poshest parties all over pittsburgh the mom little is a lot easier when you have a script to follow i learned that first hand the day my son had a life threatening allergic reaction nor can a flexors anaphylaxis can happen when someone comes into contact with their triggers it could happen anywhere any time and welcome back to spotlight on pittsburgh we are joined here with jeff berkowitz the health coach i'd like to introduce you and ask you a little bit so what is new life kitchen let's start with that new life kitchen is a company devoted to making you have a better life primarily through eating properly or eating well and that's an individual things so it's you know i can't just say oh here's a recipe or here's a menu i actually have to get to know you find out more about you figure out what it is you like and don't like and then together we figure out what foods actually make you feel better and make you live better wonderful and so how did it all began what made you open this well i was a chef for about thirty years which was a lot of fun i had so much fun and one day i couldn't do it anymore i was tired i was sick i had psoriasis and i was getting arthritis and i decided to make a change and that change was to study nutrition at the institute for integrative nutrition in new york city and start helping other people you know live better and be more healthy as well as as helping myself and testing and so what i mean what are your typical clients who's coming to you for help i wind up attracting people who are very much like me who are suffering from some sort of auto immune disease  some of them are too busy or most of them are too busy to eat properly they wind up starving themselves and then rushing to make donalds to grab a bite to eat because we're all really busy so it's people who are are extremely busy and who are already starting to see the effects of not eating properly but i think we can understand i cannot eat the now waiting to eat and then going i have to  of things not not happy things to have but there are things you can do to make your life better what do i say eat real food and make your life better so it starts with that what would you consider real  things that don't necessarily have a label like broccoli what are the ingredients to broccoli well it's broccoli i don't want to say just broccoli but you know rice grains clean meat you know we all hear about grass fed beef and you know humanely raised animals definitely those things are better than just going to store and trying things in your bag exactly or certainly i also help people to cook their own food which makes a big difference so if you know what's in that food you can have a greater degree of of sure you know surety that there you know there's nothing again what i need just yeah my last job as a chef was for a frozen food manufacturer and while we made was very clean it gave me a wealth of knowledge about the standard food ingredients that you know a the bottom and the little ones that you can see the gary like i can't pronounce that so gave me a wealth of knowledge regarding those things so i know what is better and what's better to stay away from and how long were you a chef  thirty years thirty years long time you have a lot of experience just a little bit so do you feel you know now that you've gone into this industry you're a little bit less stressed as well well you know i always enjoyed the stress in the restaurant it was it was crazy and chaotic but it was so much fun so is that stressful i'm not sure it was fun but i am sleeping better than i yeah i'm more comfortable  absolutely and so now i mean do you work out of your house like are you going to clients homes are you doing stuff in studios you know yes to all of those so i do a variety of different things we do see a lot of clients  or take a lot of clients over the phone or over the internet which is very convenient so i can have clients all over the world and i have my fat clients in england i've had clients in australia mostly in english speaking countries now that i think of it so yeah so we do that one of the australian one was funny because we had to really adjust our times that we sometimes you know we would see that i would talk to them early in the morning here or wait in the just did a beer class which was really a lot of fun fun that was like eight weeks and we brewed a bunch of different things that was really like you know and but i also love teaching kids so we do some summer camps up in sweet water one of them is is called science in the kitchen and we do all kinds of fun things mostly with what you would call food i mean will the food yeah we also have it seems like it's not like we grow crystals out of alum  sulphate you would think all that's not food but it is used in food it's used in people when you see the kids i mean what do they get to take home from your work well they get to take home wherever we make in addition to some great knife skills you know they have to show up with a knife and some of the littler kids are showing up with tiny little knives and i tell their parents no no no you have to get them a real knife and i'm going to sharpen it don't worry they're not going to cut themselves or maybe they will a little bit don't worry dot com wonderful well we've learned so much about you in such a short time i will be sharing that information with his classes and on spotlight on pittsburgh next up we will have food by lindsey here this fun and fabulous food he will be filling us in on the newest trench showing up around pittsburgh table scene that will come back with a fun challenge for these two gore may gurus we'll be right back after this commercial break full and they could use an extra hand now every state offers free or low cost health insurance through your sports hero or budding artist kids up to age nineteen can get checkups doctor and dentist visits hospital care prescriptions and more your child's may qualify based on your family size an income it's one less thing to worry about college go on line to enroll now why  wait hi welcome back we're so excited to be here with lindsay kramer of food by lindsay lindsay let's talk a little bit about what you do and what you are serving up in pittsburgh well what i do i have a catering business and i pride myself in smaller parties that i custom tailor each menu to suit the theme of the party so i never do the same thing twice i absolutely love the creativity that i get to expel with this part of my life it's awesome constantly coming up with new ideas than fun fun food to serve a pittsburgh party is so what you do interesting themes can you need a couple of these so few of my favorites i recently just of the ninja turtles party it sounds so silly but i mean you know ninja turtle faces out of vegetables and you know i've done woodland creature baby showers and you know i made a cheese ball into a  porcupine one of my favorite favorite menus was a woman threw a party for her sister's fortieth birthday and she gave me a list of all of her sister's favorite movies so it was like ferris bueller's day off pretty in pink you know all those classic like eighty's movies breakfast club and so i created the menu to cameron cameron fried fried crab cakes and i did breakfast club sandwiches and i did just you know fun some stuff like that but i just really i just roll with the theme so i think they really enjoyed it too and so this isn't even your full time no on this is my my my fun job i have a big girl job i work in an engineering company in the human resources department so it is completely the opposite of creative in a lot of paperwork and so what made you i mean is that the reason you started to have more fun or what made you i mean your company i've always loved to cook i don't have a single memory with without me and my mom in the kitchen we would always start food fights together you know what what family doesn't want to get around the table and enjoy good food so i've always enjoyed cooking when i was when i was in like middle school high school my mom worked nights so i would have to go home and cook for my dad and my brother and it just kind of took off from there and i a self taught the whole catering thing just came about because my friend wanted to throw a party and i said let me cook for you and i did this whole like southern menu or d'oeuvres and it took off from there so here i am that's those about two years ago no so wow and so you know you've done some pretty big stuff recipes i did recipe for hope recently with bonnie diver it's her charity hairpiece  exciting and everyone was so sweet i mean my partner robert me and gino was awesome and we were right next to rick see back and there was a ton of good food there i couldn't i couldn't even stay at my station because i wanted to go eat everybody else no food so i mean that's one of the drawbacks of being a caterer that you you know you see all the food it's hard yeah i mean you save a little bit for the it's a pen sometimes if i'm so busy cooking and prepping and things i don't even eat my own food but if you know allan about you know enjoying other people's stuff it's funny it's like i don't eat my own stuff because i'm usually kind of a stat but you know it's a ton of great food in pittsburgh so and so speaking of great food in pittsburgh what is the c which is still out there but you know it's kind of i get a lot of gluten free requests vegetarian food is kind of like not a thing much anymore or a lot of people do you know just vegetarianism doesn't seem to be a hot thing anymore mostly gluten free it's appends it depends on the party it depends on the people i have i have a regular customer and poor things allergic to pine nuts i had someone allergic to a root and force yeah i mean that's it it's always varies so so what's your favorite thing to cook if i'm at home i really love like grilling like i have a smoker i do smoke brisket i make steaks pork is my favorite thing on the planet so i enjoy grilling and things like that when i go out i  usually order things that i don't mean very well so my daughter and i eat a lot of sushi i'm not a little japanese person so i don't know how to roll the sushi very well there's definitely a technique there's an art it's an absolute art and i'm not good at it straight and i have i wanted to get the pillows like this and now kids are trying to actually loves it early so funny so we just had her class invited me in for career day the other day and i made fruit sushi with the kids which was super fun and usually sweetened rice and we rolled it up and fruit roll ups and put fresh fruit on top they had a blast of us it didn't look pretty again there five they didn't care but they love the taste of it so and what's kind of the most love i've made i've made which involves saffron which is the most expensive spice that sort of i think that's kind of luxurious and it's a very it's a very humble food because it's just rice and with catering gives me that that chance to kind of just be wacky and fun and have a creative outlet so and i love meeting people i love going to different houses all the time and i love experiences like this crazy i never thought that i would ever do anything like this so wonderful and so you know you mentioned your daughter is she kind of an inspiration to you she is i mean everything i do i do for her i mean a parent i think anybody that would be their answer but she is my little helper she loves to cook she loves to eat she loves that she gets the go on deliveries with me sometimes i think she knows that she gets paid with cookies like she really does help she has her own little set and nods and she you she comes up with crazy ideas that you know we mean lemony the other day she's like you know the good in here rosemary not a sleek that's crazy and we should try it you know it just sounds like something that would be really good so she's fun and i mean when i was little i think i was seven and i remember i made brownies you know out of the boxes first time i was like an executive chef at that oh yeah i mean absolutely i get stressed i get overwhelmed when i get to the stuff i'm alone and it's like i have all day and it's fine but i just couldn't imagine doing what you're doing so i love it i don't it's kind of just it just happens now so i had some night of a person as and i'm going to cook a five course meal for a couple for the husband for some excited for that and so what else what else are you looking forward to i mean what's coming up i'm completely booked until august which is fantastic i looking forward to all the new themes and parties that people throw my way and for meeting new people wonderful well thank you so much lindsay the food by lindsay stick around after the break for a tasting talent that will test even lindsey and jess refined and welcome back we are here with both lindsay and jeff so every show i like to have a fun little challenge we'll get to that in a moment they have no idea what's coming up so that makes it all the more interesting so anyway lindsey and jeff thank you both for coming on the show you your best writers do you guys have any questions for each other i mean you guys both once do or one of the better an freshly as possible there's a lot of caterers and i can tell from the pictures that you don't do this but there's a lot of caterers out there that make things several days in advance and you know that's not i never do that i'd say if i could have a slogan it would be i love graduation party yeah but i like but i love the idea that you you're actually making the menus to fit the people in the situation i mean i couldn't have said it better myself that's exactly what i do and of always done and and then and there they get what they want you know and that's a big part of it you know being disappointed is never a good feeling so it's exciting to have them be a part of the planning and creating of the money and the cool thing is that i can tell  that you love food and you love even you have to love serving people you have to love that get that rush on you you know although that was one of the best things i ever ate and you know i did a man i mean i had i have a husband who likes macaroni kraft macaroni and cheese and you know he's like it's delicious i'm like well i'm not even going to fault him for that i would totally  the reveal there's three different things for you guys to try now the object is that you have to tell me what are the ingredients ok let's play what are the ingredients if you can name one that the one or two whoever names the now hold it hold the rest here to a secret so have you both you know don't give it away so that's actually  dried flower and but we all know oh my god that's awful was going along with that i was a lot actually for coming on the show and telling us about what you do check out spotlight on pittsburgh thank you once again for joining us on spotlight on pittsburgh next time we will shine the spotlight on a brand new set of guess and