Partners
Recognized in 2001 as Outstanding Pastry Chef of the Year by The James Beard Foundation and Bon Appetite magazine and in 1994 as one of Food & Wine’s Top Ten Best New Chefs, executive pastry chef Gale Gand was schooled at La Varenne in Paris before opening Tru with culinary partner Rick Tramonto. An accomplished cookbook author with six titles to her credit, including her most recent "Chocolate and Vanilla", released in late 2006, she is currently working on her next cookbook about brunch, due for release in April 2009. Gand is the host of the long running Food Network’s "Sweet Dreams," and has two shows currently in production, "The Heirloom Recipe Project" for PBS and "The Answered Chef", an online educational cooking series at www.AnswersTV.com . She has been on Martha Stewart and this year judged Bravo's hit series "Top Chef". She has her own root beer company and also produces a vanilla cream soda.
A supporter of sustainable agriculture, eating locally and the environmental movement, Gand is a member of the National Restaurant Association's Conserve Initiative Action Council and forages annually for local ramps and mushrooms with her son for her restaurants. She is involved in many community causes, including Art Smith’s foundation, Common Threads, which teaches children racial and cultural diversity through the culinary arts and she is teaches pastry and baking after school to children at her son's middle school. Gale is married to an environmentalist, Jimmy Seidita, has a son named Gio and twins, Ella Nora and Ruby Grace. For more information on Gand, visit www.trurestaurant.com and www.galegand.com.