Plant-based chef Leslie Durso joins Vegans, Baby’s Diana Edelman to chat about her career in acting and working with Bill Nye, The Science Guy and then following her passion to become a plant-based chef. Today, she works with high-end hotels to create plant-based menus and meet the growing demand for whole plant cuisine and hosts retreats in Mexico and Italy. Get the scoop on how she got there, plus her adventures along the way.
In this episode, Leslie shares what her life was like working with Bill Nye, her passion for Italian cooking and creating recipes, her work with hotels and much more.
A vegan chef and wellness expert, Leslie is the glowing face of a fresher plant-based movement that refuses to compromise style for sustainability. Walking the plant-based talk since age eight, this Southern California native has always been well ahead of the times with her meatless mindset. She works as a consulting chef for hotels, resorts, and restaurants around the world and is currently the vegan chef at the Four Seasons Resort, Punta Mita, Mexico and the Four Seasons Resort, The Biltmore, Santa Barbara.
Once simply known as Leslie the lab girl with Bill Nye the science guy, Leslie took her love of education and shifted from science to plant based food. After establishing herself as a private chef for the NYC and Hollywood elite, Leslie emerged as a public persona, hosting cooking segments on television and online.
Determined to inspire beneficial life-long eating habits for everyone, her show Accidentally Vegan can be seen on FABFITFUNTV and she regularly appears on The Doctors, Food Network, Discovery Channel, Hallmark Channel, and written for VegNews, CNN.com, Redbook, Glamour, and more, evangelizing the benefits of a mindful lifestyle, delivered with her trademark blend of sunshiney sophistication and girl-next-door relatability.
Maxim Magazine wrote: “We want to hire Leslie as our own personal chef! We’ll even eat vegetables for her.”
An established animal advocate and proud rescue dog mom, Leslie is a founding Next Generation Board Member of the Humane Society of the United States.
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