WHAT IS EDIBLE CHESAPEAKE?

dible Chesapeake is a quarterly publication that celebrates the abundance of local and seasonal foods in the Chesapeake watershed. We celebrate family farmers, fishermen, food artisans, chefs, and other food-related businesses, as well as the consumers, home cooks and restaurant-goers who support them.

Both the publication and our web site are our contribution to the growing national movement throughout this country that is encouraging people to eat more locally-grown and locally-produced foods. By eating locally, we help sustain the small family farms that grow these foods, we enjoy food that is fresher, tastier and healthier for us, and we help reduce the cost on the environment - and in dollars - of transporting foods over long distances.

Renee Brooks Catacalos has been writing about food, restaurants, and other topics since 2001 for a variety of local and national publications. In 2006, she launched a bi-weekly e-newsletter about local food, called Local Mix, with a friend and fellow local food enthusiast. That grew into a web site, www.realpeopleeatlocal.com. She is excited to take her commitment to the wonderful local foods of Maryland, Pennsylvania and Virginia to another level as publisher and editor of Edible Chesapeake.

Renee is a local product herself, born in Washington, DC, a graduate of Bethesda-Chevy Chase High School in Bethesda, Maryland and the University of Virginia in Charlottesville. She spent more than five years as a foreign service officer with the U.S. Department of State, serving in Mexico City, Mexico, and Istanbul, Turkey, before moving to Houston, Texas in 1990, where a decade-long career in public relations and international protocol unfolded.

Houston is also where she met her husband, Damon, and gave birth to her two little Texans, Catherine and Louis. They all now live in University Park, Maryland.

WHAT IS EDIBLE COMMUNITIES?

Edible Communities is a growing national network of regional food magazines. We're a part of it!