Meet the Team
We are a network of private chefs in Portland Oregon who share a passion for healthy, whole-foods cooking & environmental sustainability. We believe that eating healthy should never mean compromising on deliciousness. We combine vibrant local foods with simple yet elevated cooking techniques for a unique farm-to-table experience you can enjoy at home!
JOHANNA GLASER
Co-owner, Chef, MScN Nutrition
She/Her
Chef Johanna is the co-owner of Gather Around Nutrition, a farm-to-table chef, & holds a Master's Degree in Holistic Nutrition from NUNM in Portland, OR. Chef Johanna is passionate about creating nourishing dishes featuring seasonal produce from local farms and wild foods. She operates with the wisdom that our bodies are microcosms of the larger living earth and that each individual has different needs to support optimal health, in contrast to the one-diet-fits-all approach. Chef Johanna believes that eating in harmony with the seasons supports optimal health while supporting local, sustainable food producers to strengthen the local economy and reduce our carbon footprint. Her Italian roots influence her work, and she strives to create dishes that make her ancestors proud.
JED THAGGARD
Co-owner, Chef, MScN Nutrition
He/Him
Jed is a chef & nutritionist living in Portland, OR. After a decade working on organic farms, studying holistic health & nutrition, and growing a love for cooking, these interests & passions intersected to help form Gather Around Nutrition, a farm-to-table private chef company with a food-as-medicine approach to cooking. With Cajun roots and an adoration for rich global cuisines such as Thai, Mexican and Eastern Mediterranean, flavor is never lacking in Jed's food! He loves adapting recipes to have a "northwest flair" to showcase the abundance of local produce of our region. He also takes pleasure in adapting classic comfort foods to fit his clients' dietary needs. With a vegetable-forward approach to cooking, his meals will leave you feeling satisfied & healthy. As someone who has suffered with IBS, but now has it under control through diet & lifestyle changes, Jed wants to support others on their own health journeys by providing delicious home-cooked meals prepared with local, seasonal ingredients, creativity & love.
ALEXA BILLY
Chef, RD, Oncology Specialist
She/Her
Chef Alexa has been working as a registered dietitian since 2016, however her love of food began much earlier in life, growing up in the kitchen with her Italian mother. During her time working in an oncology clinic, Alexa recognized a significant gap between nutrition knowledge and the ability to nourish oneself well. Having witnessed the profound impact of nutrition on overall health and well-being, Chef Alexa became dedicated to providing her clients with the tools and knowledge they need to make informed decisions about their nutrition through carefully tailored medical nutrition therapy. She aims to empower individuals to take control of their health and find balance amongst the chaos. Chef Alexa is deeply committed to supporting and caring for individuals facing the challenges of cancer and treatment plans. By combining her expertise in oncology with a compassionate approach and a love of food, she strives to make a positive difference in the lives of her clients. Chef Alexa is proficient in a multitude of diets including diabetic, Mediterranean, paleo, low-FODMAP, vegan/vegetarian, heart healthy and many more. Her favorite cuisines to cook are Mediterranean, Middle-eastern, and Asian-inspired cooking. Her farm-to-table cooking style ensures the most nutrient dense foods of the season while also supporting local agricultures and economies.
RYAN BUGNASKI
Chef
They/Them
Ryan has over 15 years of professional cooking experience in a host of environments including a vegan food delivery service, a fine dining restaurant, neighborhood cafes and as a postpartum personal chef. Their love of food began at a young age in their grandmothers’ kitchens and was solidified in a culinary arts training program in high school. Informed by their roots in Ashkenazi Jewish and US Southern cooking styles, as well as an interest in international cuisines and whole food cooking techniques, Ryan brings dynamism and passion to pleasing your palate. In their twenties, they traveled extensively, volunteering and learning on organic farms, bolstering their love of farm-to-table cooking and invigorating a commitment to local & sustainable nourishment. They care deeply about making delicious, nutritionally dense meals with fresh local ingredients that nourish and bring people together. Ryan is very experienced in cooking and baking for a wide variety of dietary needs including: vegan/vegetarian, allergen-free, Mediterranean, Paleo, high protein & low carb, high or low fiber, and elimination-based dietary trials. They can accommodate even the most particular palate and preferences with pleasure.
GABRIELLA GONZALEZ
Chef, CHN, Certified Body Trust Provider
She/Her
Gabriella is a holistic nutritionist, grassroots food sovereignty activist & community educator. She graduated from The Wellspring School for Healing Arts in Portland where she studied nutrition with both a Western and Eastern lens. Her passion for cooking blossomed at a young age and she views food as a way to express her creativity, connect with her ancestors & the earth, as well as re-affirm self-love. Her cooking style is global and she loves to weave flavors from all across the world including her own Nicaraguan indigenous roots. Guided by the rhythms of PNW seasonality, Gabriella infuses herbal medicine knowledge and foraged foods into the meals she creates. Passionate about contributing to a more just food system, she focuses on supporting local farmers, ranchers, and fisherfolk directly. She is experienced in cooking for a variety of therapeutic diets including AIP, gluten-free, nightshade-free, and IBS but her passion lies in helping women become more in tune with their cycle and balance their hormones through food.
Gabriella also runs Sky Above Trail Grub, an adventure meal company that provides whole food plant-based dehydrated meals!
EMILY GREEN
Chef
She/Her
As a personal chef with a background in organic farming and folk herbalism, Emily is passionate about actively practicing what it means to live in reciprocity with the earth. She loves to cook nourishing meals that connect people to their environment and bodies, while also supporting farmers who are engaged in regenerative soil & seed practices to promote biodiversity. Emily studied herbalism at Eclectic Institute, where she fell in love with the concept of “food as medicine.” She loves to incorporate medicinal herbs, wild-foraged foods, locally grown grains, and grass-fed animal products into her menus. Her passion lies in fresh, seasonal, farm-to-table cooking, and she especially loves to cook nutrient-dense food for families with children. Additionally, she is skilled in a variety of therapeutic diets, and as someone who has had first-hand experiences healing her body through nutrition, she knows just how important it is to keep meals fun and interesting no matter what the dietary restrictions are. In addition to her work at Gather Around, Emily is the co-founder of Marrow, an up-and-coming pop-up dinner series and product line centered around “nose-to-tail” cooking. Through this work, she is honored to work closely with local regenerative farms to showcase underutilized cuts of meat in creative ways. She hopes that this work sparks curiosity, wonder, and change in our local food system.
CIEL LININGER, MScN
Chef, CHN, Certified Body Trust Provider
She/Her
Born and raised in Portland, Chef Ciel graduated from the National University for Natural Medicine with a master’s degree in the Science of Nutrition, where she focused on culinary and clinical nutrition. Chef Ciel aims to apply medical nutrition therapy, therapeutic diets and other dietary interventions to support people through improving quality of life and reaching nutritional wellness goals. She has a holistic approach which features foods that support health and vitality, and an emphasis on quality ingredients, seasonal produce, and supporting local farmers and food economy. With a background in preventative nutrition and community education, Ciel appreciates the value of people engaging directly with their food to create meaningful connections to nourishment. From a place of nonjudgmental and non-harming, Ciel strives to facilitate attainable yet significant shifts for individuals with their health and wellbeing through education, empowerment of food as medicine, and plant medicine.
JENNA MORENO, MScN
Chef
She/Her
Jenna is a holistic nutritionist with a Masters of Science in Nutrition from the National University of Natural Medicine in Portland, Oregon. With a background in sustainability and environmental studies, she is passionate about bringing the power of nutrition to communities through emphasizing local, seasonal, and sustainable foods. Her love of cooking stems from her love of deeply nourishing the body with healing foods that highlight the beauty of seasonality. This holistic approach focuses on healing gut issues, balancing hormones, and preventing the onset of chronic diseases. The connections she has made to local producers has only further fueled her desire to connect more individuals to the abundance of the PNW. Her secondary passion lies in helping replenish and support the health of postpartum women as she is a mama herself.
KIT POSERT
Chef
She/Her
Chef Kit has always deeply loved food and cooking, especially shared with friends and loved ones. Since graduating from the Culinary Institute of America, she has worked on an organic vegetable farm and several restaurants from fine dining in New York City to health food cafes in Portland. She celebrates seasonal vegetables and explores their possibilities across traditional cuisines worldwide. She is always experimenting with fermentation to express beautiful colors and complex flavors all while unlocking nutrients and extending the seasons. She enjoys exploring the creativity needed to accommodate specific diets and believes everyone deserves to feel the healing power of eating fresh, varied, and enticing whole foods. When she's outside of the kitchen, she loves to make all sorts of art, play guitar, and go for a hike!
SARAH BRENNAN
Chef
She/Her
Sarah’s relationship to food is guided by the permaculture principles of earth care and people care. With an educational background in environmental science and farming, cooking has become a way for Sarah to embody the things she cares about most, the health of our local community and the health of our local ecosystem. Sarah has been on a journey of exploring culinary nourishment since 2015. Her expression of working with food has looked many different ways, from cooking for a food truck serving up organic superfoods to hosting large scale farm-to-table dining experiences. In 2021, she launched a California-Korean pop-up project in Santa Cruz, CA with Korean chef Piper Lee to bring seasonal and traditional homestyle Korean cooking to the community. All of her cooking excursions have been rooted in an affection to share the pleasure, joy, and healing that intentionally sourced and lovingly created foods can offer her community. Sarah is largely inspired by Mediterranean and Asian cuisines, with a seasonal twist, always bringing bright flavors and colorful aesthetics to her cooking.
LIV MCMONAGLE
Chef
She/Her
Liv began her cooking journey in her family kitchen in rural Wisconsin surrounded by a community of small-scale farmers. Her Italian roots provided her a deep sense that food should be a source of joy, and a way to share love with oneself and community. She strives to focus attention on what foods nourish individuals as a tool to minimize stress as it relates to food and eating. Her passion lies with understanding the mind-gut connection. She studied food systems and globalization which deepened her understanding and core value of connecting humans to land and to food. Her professional background has been in all things “produce,” and provided her with an expansive knowledge of seasonal varietals of PNW fruits and vegetables. She enjoys cooking Mediterranean, South East Asian and Mexican foods, while always incorporating the most vibrant vegetables that the season has to offer.