Caroline Ruriko Ishii has had a love and curiosity for food and flavours since she was a child in Toronto helping her mother prepare traditional Japanese dishes. This interest grew into a passion for the fundamentals and creativity of cooking and informed her emergence in Canada as a gifted, award-winning chef, TV personality, speaker and author.
Caroline was the creative force behind ZenKitchen—a gourmet, vegan whole foods restaurant in Ottawa that enabled her to channel the concepts formed from her childhood experiences and chef training in New York, San Francisco and Tokyo. These concepts—that plant-based, organic, and local, whole foods are best for our bodies and for the environment—are popular today but were trailblazing in ZenKitchen’s early days.
Caroline’s bold new take on traditional ideas quickly earned a devoted following and critical acclaim, including the silver medal at Canada’s prestigious Gold Medal Plates Culinary Olympics competition in 2011 and 2012 and named one of best restaurants in Ontario in Lonely Planet Canada. Her popularity grew with a 13-part documentary-reality show called The Restaurant Adventures of Caroline and Dave that aired on the W Network, the Asia Food Channel, and Oprah Winfrey Network (OWN) Canada.
Caroline holds an Executive MBA from the University of Ottawa and is a graduate of the Natural Gourmet Institute for Health and Culinary Arts in New York. A long-time meditator and lover of yoga, Caroline obtained her hatha teacher training certificate from Ottawa’s Prana Shanti Yoga Centre in 2013.
A third-generation Japanese Canadian born in Toronto, she travels the world in search of new taste memories and blogs about food, travel and life on www.carolineishii.com and Medium: https://medium.com/@carolineishii
The Accidental Chef is Caroline’s first book. Her second book on Canadian culture and cuisine will be published by Tokyo publisher Kirasienne, in Japanese, in April 2018.
Web site: www.carolineishii.com
Twitter: chef_ishii
Instagram: carolineishii
Facebook: chefcarolineishii
Follow my blog posts on Medium: https://medium.com/@carolineishii
Author of The Accidental Chef
https://www.amazon.com/Accidental-Chef-Lessons-Learned-Kitchen/dp/1522791817
Author of Canadian Vegan Recipes
https://www.amazon.co.jp/dp/4906913768/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_ep_dp_C3EUAb2ARB9G4