CulinArt cookbook celebrates food that brings people together

RYE BROOK, N.Y., Feb. 28, 2025—More than three dozen CulinArt culinary professionals collaborated on the release of “Connecting Through Food,” a digital cookbook featuring recipes for nutritious and well-balanced meals that can be prepared in account locations as well as the home. The cookbook is the perfect companion to CulinArt’s promotion, “Connecting Through Food During National Nutrition Month,” which starts tomorrow (March 1).

CulinArt team members from all market segments in 11 states worked in groups of three or four to draft, test, refine, and finalize recipes in seven categories: Breakfast, Soup, Salad, Starters, Entrees, Sandwich/Taco, Sides, and Desserts. Photographs of each dish appear in the cookbook along with commentary from team members about a particular recipe component, appeal, or dimension.

“This cookbook is a celebration of flavor, wellness, and connection,” says Stephanie Dorfman, MS, RDN, CulinArt’s director of nutrition and wellness, who spearheaded the project. As noted in her prologue, each recipe is accompanied by a description of its health benefits. In addition, the variety of recipe categories reflects how meals, while they can take many forms, all serve a common purpose. “Whether it’s a homemade meal with family, or a quick snack with a friend, food has the power to bring people closer,” Dorfman writes. “It helps us share stories, learn about each other, and create lasting memories around the table.”

Readers will learn where each chef works and view a graphic representation of the geography connecting them. For example, chefs from independent schools in California and Rhode Island and catering venues in New York concocted the recipe for Farro and Tomato Salad (see page 16), which can stand alone or be amplified with a protein to a full meal. This team, in its collaboration, found themselves discussing the need for composed salads to evolve beyond pasta and more toward grains.

“With National Nutrition Month this month,” says Torri Hieber, director of dining services at The Wheeler School, in Providence, R.I., “we wanted to incorporate fresh, spring-like flavors—adding in a funky twist with the capers.” A note to this recipe advises on how to make it “vegan” as well as how to make it a heartier meal with a protein such as chicken, fish, eggs, or others. “Adding a protein is an excellent way to complete a meal and bring full nutrition to the plate,” Hieber adds.

Another team comprising chefs on both coasts worked around time-zone disparity by trading notes via e-mail, with one chef testing the dish—the Chicken Sandwich with Green Coleslaw—as a staff family meal. “I was most anxious to see if our tastes would be something we could all agree on,” says Henrick Chen, executive chef at Keio Academy, in Purchase, N.Y., “and the feedback [on the family meal] was very positive.” As with the salad, notes suggest swapping the chicken with tofu for vegan appeal.

In fact, the chefs conveyed a consensus that the diversity in their market segments and locations actually fed their creativity. “The idea that one’s environment influences one’s culture definitely played a part” in the Open-Faced Waffle Sandwich recipe, according to Leslie DiNapoli, chef manager at Westover School, in Middlebury, Conn.

The team included chefs in Pennsylvania—like Connecticut, commonly below freezing in January—and Los Angeles, where temperatures average a balmy 68 degrees at that time. In coming up with the Waffle Sandwich, “one person who normally is surrounded by colder weather suggested something more on the heartier side,” DiNapoli says, “while another coming from a warmer climate suggested something with a lighter flare to it”—which explains why its ingredients include poached egg and whole milk as well as avocado and turkey bacon. “It was really interesting to see the influences of both nature and nurture.”

DiNapoli adds that her team’s dish was meant to be nourishing, healthy, and minimally wasteful, and to lend itself to preparation as easily in the home as in the commercial kitchen. Other goals appeared along the way, she notes, such as limiting the amount of waste that producing it creates, its carbon footprint, and how leftovers might complement it. “Being healthy does not just include watching the salt intake or fat content of an item,” DiNapoli declares. “It should also include what that product leaves behind—what it took to produce it and what got destroyed or consumed to make it into the creation it became.”

“Connecting Through Food” features yet another unique collaboration—chefs from all four states where CulinArt operates dining services for Stryker (New Jersey, Florida, Michigan, and California), CulinArt’s first national account. Until recently, half the team worked for an incumbent provider (actually two), so their recipe for Rolled Oat-Coconut Pancakes gave them an opportunity to get to know each other while elevating contributions from those chefs in new regions for CulinArt—southeast Michigan (Kalamazoo) and northern California (San Jose/Fremont).

Creation of the cookbook also connected members of the CulinArt corporate support team. The brainchild of VP Marketing and Corporate Strategy Ali Bernardi, “Connecting Through Food” was designed by Sr. Graphic Designer Blake Mackowick, copy-edited by Sr. Communications Manager James Pond, and broadcast on social media by Marketing and Engagement Manager Jen Espada. Peter Klein and Angie Peccini, director and associate director of culinary development, respectively, tested final recipes, photographed plated dishes, and shared the recipes in Webtrition for all CulinArt team members to utilize in their accounts.

Click here to view and/or download CulinArt’s “Connecting Through Food” cookbook, which will expand over time in terms of menu category, sector representation, and geographic location.

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