Melanie Underwood
Founder
"The most important skill I teach isn't cooking—it's trusting yourself."
30
YEARS TEACHING EXPERIENCE
25
YEARS TEACHING @ THE INSTITUTE OF CULINARY
EDUCATION
50k
STUDENTS TAUGHT
22,000
INSIGHT TIMER TRACK DOWNLOADS
4,800
IN ATTENDANCE AT A LIVE COOKING DEMONSTRATION
Bio
Melanie Underwood is a certified culinary educator and certified mindfulness instructor, published cookbook author, and the founder of Nourish and Gather.
She worked as a pastry chef at the Four Seasons Hotel, the Plaza Hotel, and other celebrated NYC restaurants before spending 25 years teaching at the Institute of Culinary Education.
Her work has been featured on Food Network, ABC, NBC, and CNN.
The Work
The Work
Through cooking classes, meditations and mindfulness, Melanie creates a space where curiosity leads to conversations, conversations create connections, and connections build community. Her approach - embodied nourishment - meets people exactly where they are and leaves them more confident than when they walked in.
As a certified culinary educator, certified mindfulness instructor, and regularly featured teacher on the global app Insight Timer, Melanie has taught over 50,000 students in 30 years. Before founding Nourish and Gather, she worked at The Four Seasons Hotel, The Plaza Hotel, and other celebrated NYC restaurants.
She is the author of Making Artisan Cheesecake, an Amazon Editor's Pick. Her work has been featured on Food Network, ABC, NBC, and CNN.
Why This Matters
We are living in a moment of profound disconnection. People are retreating into ecosystems of agreement, surrounding themselves with those who think and live as they do. Curiosity is becoming a lost art.
The table is one of the last places where that changes. Where people who might never choose each other still share something real, lean in, and remember there is a human on the other side. Food has always been a bridge across culture, generation, and difference. Melanie believes it still is and that now, more than ever, we need it to be.
The Table Is Where It Begins
Melanie grew up on a family farm in Loudoun County, Virginia, where mistakes were welcomed and every meal was a conversation. No right answers. No wrong opinions. Just people gathered together, learning to trust themselves and each other.
That table never left her.
She's been building it ever since - one student, one class, one conversation, one community at a time.
What You Leave With
Curiosity We have stopped asking questions. Here's where we start. Curiosity is a lost art, and it is the first thing we bring back. Creativity It is already in you. You just need the freedom to use it.
Conversation When curiosity wakes up, conversation follows. It teaches you. It reminds you that the person across the table has something worth hearing.
Connection Conversation is where it starts. Connection is where it lands. It is the moment you realize this person, this experience, this place — it matters to you. Community Connection, multiplied. A table of people who didn't choose each other, discovering they have more in common than they thought. That is community. And it is rarer and more necessary than ever.
And then you learn to listen to yourself.
Clarity Something happens when you slow down and pay attention. The noise gets quieter. Clarity is not something you chase — it finds you when you stop running. Calm Not the absence of chaos. The ability to be in it without being consumed by it. Calm is a practice, and like any practice, it gets easier the more you do it. Confidence This is where it all lands. The kind that knows its own instincts and trusts them.
What Melanie Hopes
That whatever brings you through the door, a cooking class, a sound bath, a conversation, you leave with something that stays. The ability to trust your own instincts. The curiosity to ask questions. The willingness to sit across from someone different and stay open.
The radical act of being kind.
These are not small things. They change the world.
Melanie's Mission
Melanie was put on this earth to make it a better place. Not in the abstract. In the specific, human, one-conversation at a time way. Through food. Through sound. Through gathering people together.
If that resonates with you, you are in the right place.