Hello! I am excited to share my passion for food with you. As a fourth generation Montanan I'm lucky to call beautiful Whitefish my home and find endless gratitude in being able to pull inspiration from Montana's local organic food. After spending nearly 20 years working in the Tech industry I pivoted and followed my heart to persue my dream to attend culinary school in New York City. My love of all things seasonal ingredients, farm sourcing, cooking, energy healing, and using food as a love language led me to choose "The Farm Powered Kitchen" culinary program at The International Culinary Center in Manhattan where I was classically trained in French culinary techniques while learning additional curiculim led by an upstate New York working farm.  

My passion and inspiration for cooking comes from using seasonal and local ingredients whenever possible. It is my feeling that food has energy and where you source your food from matters. It is my hope that I can create thoughtful, creative, nourishing meals each week utilizing what is available from our local farms, purveyors, ranches, and growers. Whenever I cannot source locally (middle to late winter) I will utilize our local partners who source from farms as close as possible to Montana.

Food has energy and where you get your food from has energy -from the hands that grow it to the soil health it's grown in. Simulataneous to my tech career I was also a certified reiki master and energy healer. It's the intersection of these two worlds (food and energy healing) that really excite me.  

My business model was born out of a real need that I had when I was working in the corporate world. While working extremely long hours I found it difficult to dedicate the time needed to do the kind of shopping I wanted to do, menu planning that I wanted to do, and cooking that I wanted to do. I found myself yearning for a food delivery solution that focused just as much on where the food came from as the menu and the quality of cooking. Even though I absolutely loved to cook, shop at farmer's markets and farms, I simply didn't have the time to do this as much as I wanted to with my hectic tech work schedule. I was yearning for someone I trusted to take at least a few meals a week off my plate to ensure I'd get delicious, healthy, wholeistic food so I could focus on my life and work but not compromise on consistent weekly meals.

The name Taper (noun: a long slender candle) was inspired by my grandmother, Helen, a Whitefish native who owned one of the earliest female founded businesses in downtown Whitefish called The Candlewick that carried cooking supplies, home goods, and gifts. I wanted to give a nod to her entrepenural spirit, local business acumen, and love of cooking. Her cooking was decadent, delicious and full of love. While my meals are more focused on healthy ingredients the same robust love that she had for food is very much alive in me. Beyond the women in my family who shaped my cooking (my mom Carole and my grandmother Helen) I also take a lot of joy and inspiration from travel and learning and incorporating cooking that I learn along my travels around the world.