About the RD

Welcome to RD Eats! I’m a Registered Dietitian (RD)*, working as a pediatric/obstetric clinical nutritionist in New York City’s top children’s hospital. Not only do I get to figure out ways to utilize food and nutrition to heal patients, but I get to spend my days talking and thinking about FOOD!

I’m not a professional chef, food critic, or writer. I’m just an ordinary person raised by a French Culinary Institute-trained dad and a pasta-obsessed mom born in Italy. I am a lover of real food, a cooking fanatic, an on-the-side photographer, a former counselor, and finally a nutritionist with a third degree and a second career.

This blog was born when I lived in what I believed to be Brooklyn’s smallest studio apartment, and cooked in a less-than-16 square foot “kitchen area.” I stored pans in my oven, used bookshelves for plates, and almost sent myself to the ER while making butternut squash bisque. With balancing acts, a little creativity and a sprinkle of patience, I found that I could successfully produce multi-course meals for half a dozen friends with minimal disasters.

Now my kitchen is (a bit) bigger, and my husband and I enjoy cooking together while tripping over an always-hungry pup scouring the floor for crumbs. RD Eats is a documentation of my journey to my new career in the food world, a compilation of recipes, anecdotes, personal challenges, photos, and favorites, and tips for my fellow small space dwellers, who know what it’s like to have to move a piece of furniture out of the way in order to make a frittata.

 

*What is a Registered Dietitian?

A registered dietitian is a food and nutrition expert who has met academic and professional requirements including a degree with coursework approved by the Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics’ Accreditation Council for Education in Nutrition and Dietetics (ACEND) including food and nutrition sciences, biochemistry, physiology, microbiology and chemistry, has completed an accredited supervised practice program of at least 1200 hours, and passed a national examination administered by the Commission on Dietetic Registration. The majority of registered dietitians work in the treatment and prevention of disease (administering medical nutrition therapy, as part of medical teams). RDs may call themselves “nutritionists,” but not all nutritionists are RDs!