Ashley Madden is a graduate of the Chef’s Training Program at Natural Gourmet Institute. After being diagnosed with a chronic disease at a young age, she completely changed her diet, lifestyle and ultimately, her career. Read on to learn about Ashley's drive to fully embrace food as medicine in her own life and to help others do the same.

Natural Gourmet Institute (NGI) has been celebrating fresh, local, and sustainable food for 40 years, and we are continuously educating students on creating delicious dishes with seasonal produce from our local communities. In honor of our 40th anniversary, we hosted a special Instagram sweepstakes contest in partnership with JetBlue, Hotel Henri, and Hotel Hayden. Two lucky winners, received round-trip tickets for two to New York City, a 2-night hotel stay, and complimentary tickets to NGI's North Fork Tour. Read on for details about the exciting North Fork excursion.

We were thrilled to welcome board members, faculty, staff, alumni, students, influencers, and media at our NGI “home” for a celebration of our 40 th Anniversary this week.

The paradox of the pantry. How many times have you stocked up end-of-days style with “the essentials” only to have hundreds of dollars of condiments, herbs and spices rot from the ravages of time? Or maybe you keep it so minimal that every time you’re inspired to revolutionize cuisine as the world knows it you have nothing in your arsenal.

Olivia Roszkowski was a full-time chef instructor at NGI before teaching Health-Supportive Culinary Arts at the Institute of Culinary Education. She graduated from NGI's Chef's Training Program in 2010 and holds a bachelor's degree from Columbia University in Neuroscience and Behavior. As a pre-medical student and certified EMT, she completed internships at Bellevue, Columbia Presbyterian and the Hospital for Special Surgery. Olivia has cooked at well-known New York restaurants, including Jean-Georges Vongerichten’s (The) Mercer Kitchen, David Chang’s Momofuku Ssam Bar and Danny Meyer’s Union Square Events.