Jenny Breen: Good Food as a Life's Mission

by Elizabeth Archerd

If Jenny Breen were an organization, her mission statement might read: To help people realize that delicious food and healthful food can be the same thing.

Jenny works from the shocking idea that dietary wisdom and eating pleasure are not opposing principles. For those who came of age on early 1970's natural food or who grew up with the 1980's dire experiments of fat-free everything, this should be welcome news!

Growing up in a family of food-adventurers, Jenny learned to cook early because when Jenny was ten, her mother "disappeared from the kitchen" altogether while in law school for three years. To redistribute the domestic load, each child cooked dinner once a week. Jenny was then awakened to the impact of food choices during a college year spent in Israel. Although her labor in the avocado orchards was vigorous, eating so many of the lovely fruits added inches to her waistline.

Back in the US, she became aware of the excesses in every area of American life and she channeled the energy from "re-entry overwhelm" into exploring the world of food. Starting at Francesca's on Selby, where she talked her way into a baking job though she had no experience, Jenny learned to bake with standard, refined ingredients. She eventually joined the Seward Cafe collective for six years, where she applied her new skills to whole grain flours and natural foods, and learned about the Cafe's long practice of buying from local growers.

In 1993, Jenny and a friend opened a catering business called Taste Buds. It was so much fun that they decided to take a class in small business development, which required them to develop a business plan and pitch it to three banks. To their instructor's amazement, ("no one offers money to restaurants!") all three banks offered them a loan.

Thus began The Good Life Cafe, which operated for five years in south Minneapolis, specializing in casual dining with local and organic whole foods. The Cafe was sold when both partners were ready to start families, and the healthy lives they wanted did not include 70-hour work weeks. Jenny and her friend, however, continue to cater, specializing in sustainable, organic and local food.

In addition to the catering, Jenny was the nutrition educator with the Youth Farm and Market Program. She currently teaches cooking classes at the Wedge and at the University of Minnesota Arboretum, where she is the Resident Chef for their celebrated Heartland Food series, which she initiated four years ago. Though she continues to explore new terrain with cuisine, Jenny's core message has never changed: there is no need to sacrifice pleasure to eat well.

Jenny Breen is the author of the soon to be released cookbook A Taste of the Good Life. She will be teaching classes at the Wedge in May and June. Jenny Breen can be reached at: 612-825-1130 www.goodlifecatering.com