Paulette Phlipot

Paulette Phlipot isn’t just an award-winning food, travel and lifestyle photographer, she is the embodiment of a healthy food advocate. We have ultimate respect and admiration for Paulette, whose own lifestyle epitomizes harmony among source, preparation and presentation of healthy local food. In 2008, Paulette was awarded “Best of Show” at the Annual International Association of Culinary Professionals conference. The Local Food Alliance is honored to feature her beautifully evocative photographs on our website, eNewsletters, and social media pages. We are even more pleased to call her a true Food Patriot and one of the Local Food Alliance’s most committed supporters. Here’s what Paulette said when asked about her personal relationship to food:

How did you become interested in food?
I feel like it is something I was born into. I really had no choice. Both my parents enjoy cooking and love good food and gardening.  Sit down family dinners and dinners with friends were very important and regular. My brother and his family still go to my parents for a home cooked meal every Sunday night. My parents taught us to enjoy and appreciate fine dining at a very young age. We also spent lots of time getting dirty, helping in their gardens. Despite growing up in the Wonder Bread years my mother always insisted we got our bread fresh from our local bakery. We had brown local farm eggs delivered to our front door every week. I remember how my friends thought it was so strange that our eggs were brown. My parents instilled an appreciation and understanding for food throughout our everyday experiences.

What’s your definition of “good food”?
Enjoying delicious food as close to it’s original state as possible. Something just pulled from the ground or picked out of a garden or off of a tree that has been grown chemical free.

Who is your food hero?
Anyone who is growing and producing local, organic products and raising animals sustainably and on pasture and making this food accessible to others is a hero in my mind. I can not be more grateful or thankful for the farmers from which we buy so many products from.

What is your biggest wish for food system change?
Teach our children how to eat, how to cook and how to appreciate real, whole, nourishing food. And with this teach children how to order and eat from a regular menu (not a children’s menu). The younger the children are the easier it is to teach them, but I do believe it’s never too late to educate and truly interest children in real food.

What’s your favorite food to cook?
Homemade pasta. I am very specific about what grains we use, how they are prepared and how they were grown. I am just as concerned with eggs and how the chickens were raised and what they were fed. Making our own pasta has allowed us to enjoy pasta again. I love working the dough with my hands and my daughter loves to help too.

What’s your end goal or what impact do you hope to have in terms of food?
To encourage others to slow down and to take notice of what they are eating and encourage them to want to get back into their kitchens more.