On the Front Burner with Sarma Melngailis

This is the final week of featuring our artists from the magazine. While we will still feature recipes and bios from time to time, we are shifting gears a bit at Amuse Bouche. We have really enjoyed getting to know each and every one of them and hope you have too. Please help me welcome Sarma Melngailis. She is as inspiring as she is beautiful and after reading her words, I am more committed to healthy living and eating.

Hi, I’m Sarma, of One Lucky Duck and Pure Food and Wine.

I’m the owner and co-founder of Pure Food and Wine, New York City’s only upscale raw vegan restaurant. It was created for people who love food, whether vegan or not, and our regular customer base includes people from all walks of life and from all over the world. The first year the restaurant opened (2004) I began working on my first book, Raw Food Real World ,co-authored with my then collaborator. While writing the book I realized that readers and the rest of the world would be well served with an accessible and colorful online resource for ingredients, for my restaurant’s packaged cookies and snacks, and for all the best products related to living a healthy, organic lifestyle. To that end I created the One Lucky Duck brand, launching the online boutique oneluckyduck.com in 2005 (and then ran out and got a tattoo of my logo, just in case anyone doubted my commitment!)

I followed up my first book with a second in 2009, Living Raw Food. Today in addition to the restaurant I have two One Lucky Duck juice bars, one attached to the restaurant and one across town, and we ship our One Lucky Duck snacks and other products worldwide. My restaurant and juice bars are probably best known for our desserts…

I also keep a blog of essays on my website and you can always find me rambling on my Twitter account.

I grew up with a love for good food and restaurants, with my mother having been a restaurant chef. But still I ended up in the corporate world after college, working my ass off in NYC in investment banking and then private equity. I finally left after 5 years and enrolled in the French Culinary Institute. Then after two years in the restaurant world, I stumbled upon the world of raw food. It felt very foreign and confusing at the time. That’s why my company and I do everything we can to make healthy living appealing, accessible, fun, and delicious.

I love what I do now. If I can encourage people to make a shift towards eating more plants and less animals, and towards eating more real food instead of processed food, then I’m doing what I’m meant to do.