Chef Jo

Meet Chef Jo

Joanna would like to live in a world where people eat whole foods that will enable them to awaken their inner superhero. She knows that being happy, healthy and fit starts with the right nourishment, & feels that eating should be a pleasurable exercise. Her intense desire to be creative enables her to help her clients enjoy both decadent, healthy food in their daily diets: intense flavor and health can go hand in hand!

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She has served her culinary creations to a wide variety of audiences including the folks at Cirque du Soleil, actors Hugh Jackman and Rachel Weiss, and Mitch Garber & family.

She gets inspiration for her culinary creations from her independent travels, her extensive repertoire focusing on Thai and Mediterranean cuisines. She spent time in southern Italy when she learned how to make scrumptious foods like gelato, traditional pizza and homemade pasta. Favourite food moment: eating the best hummus at a joint in Tel-Aviv - something she learned to re-create at home and then some!

 

Joanna flexed her adventurous spirit when she left Canada for Thailand where she dedicated two & a half years to the ancient art of Muay Thai and to ultimately training for her first pro fight. Which she won! She therefore knows first hand the demands on an athlete’s body and how to feed it.

 

Adept at working around pesky food intolerances, she can whip up tasty dishes that happen to be gluten-free, dairy-free, avoiding refined sugar, low GI, vegetarian, vegan.

This passionate chef is on a mission to teach people about healthy eating & thinking in order to avoid health issues and disease; "we are more in control of our health than we think."

 

Joanna’s passion for cooking started as a child when her Mom and brother showed her the difference between Kraft dinner and real foods that our bodies crave.  She formalised her culinary skills at l’Institut de Tourisme et l’Hotellerie du Québec (ITHQ) cooking school, then launched her own catering business, where she served up generous portions of delectable eating.

 

Her ideal day would be spent in her client’s kitchen, whipping up a tailored menu, serving it on a platter of indulgence & allowing the host to enjoy every minute of their precious leisure time.

When not in the kitchen, Joanna believes in giving back. She has volunteered with the Starlight Foundation, Night of 1000 Dinners, among others. And as always she is constantly seeking new traveling chef gigs to advance her career, food knowledge, & take her across the globe.

At Your Service

Tel: (1) 514.649.2540  |  Email: joruckenstein@hotmail.com