Katie Brodie is an artist, but she doesn’t use a paintbrush or a camera. Her canvas is your plate, and it is her life’s work to make the world a better place through food.

“I’ve always thought of myself as a creative person, and I tried to draw unicorns … I can’t tell you how many times!” she exclaimed. “And I just can’t do it, but I feel that my creativity comes out when I’m thinking about food. I go to the store fresh, with no ideas, and I just look for ingredients and become inspired and build on that.”

Brodie was enchanted by food at a young age. “When I was in 5th grade, I went to France for a French exchange program and my French family woke up every morning and had coffee and fresh baguette with Nutella for breakfast – together. … My mom was a frozen dinner kinda mom, but we still always did family sit-down dinner, (so) the concept of sitting down and eating together was always there.”

When Brodie was in France for the exchange program, she remembers being in the French countryside and having big family gatherings with picnic tables full of fresh, homemade food. Friends and family bonded around food at these gatherings, and that was something that has stayed with Brodie. “Seeing that showed me that there was power behind food, and this energy that can go into food, and that there should be more put into food. A frozen dinner is sorta lifeless.”

When she returned from France, she began cooking more and more. “What really sealed it, was that around 7th grade I decided to become a vegetarian. Mom was like, ‘I’m gonna cook what I’m gonna cook for the family, and if you don’t want to eat it, then you cook for yourself.’ So, then I really started cooking a lot.”

Brodie started cooking for friends as well, and then eventually began cooking for her family, because “they wanted to eat what I was eating,” she said.

Brodie thinks that in addition to being a catalyst for family fusion and celebration, food is important to the health of the community – literally and figuratively.

“I think that local chefs and restaurant owners have a responsibility to people and to the community to cook fresh food,” she said. “(It’s) our job and life, and if we’re not making sure that we’re working with the best ingredients, then we’re doing ourselves an injustice and we’re also failing the community. … In a bigger sense, our society has a huge plague on it with food. Super-size French fries. It kills me that people eat mindlessly.”

Brodie has always looked to European cultures for cues to food as it applies to living. “We need to get back to the root of food, and look at other countries as examples. When I was in Italy we rented a car and explored all of the Tuscany region and I saw maybe three McDonald’s the entire time. You don’t see fat Italians, except for maybe the fat grandmas.”

In Europe, many people buy groceries every day and take the time to cook fresh meals for their families. Eating well takes time and effort, which is something that seems to have escaped many American families. People have forgotten how to eat nutritiously and mindfully, and their waistlines are evidence of that.

Brodie believes this is a direct result of the actions of our own government. “In the American government, the former CEO of Monsanto (the corporation responsible for all that is wrong in our food system: pre-packed food, high fructose corn syrup) has been elected as the head of the FDA.”

It’s a scary thought that the head of the FDA was a frozen dinner slinger at one point in time, especially when the United States tops the obesity charts already.

However, Brodie is confident that change is taking place, at least on a local level. She works at The Refinery, a restaurant in Tampa that is moving in the right direction. “At The Refinery, our farmers all come and deliver our ingredients personally, and I know them all by name. We change our menu every week and we’re constantly coming up with new ways to capture and captivate our customers.”

This is what food is all about. Taking the time and the energy to care about what you, and the people you serve, are eating. “When it comes down to it, for any given restaurant, it’s about who is in charge, and what do they care about? Do they care about the bottom line, or do they care about putting out the best food they possibly can?”

Brodie is of the latter breed, because food is her art and her life.

“Having different colors and textures and flavors, it’s like a whole dance,” she said. “You want the customer to look at it and say, ‘Oh my God, this looks awesome! I can’t wait to see what it tastes like.’ And then when they do taste it they are just as excited about it. I want somebody to eat my food and to never forget that meal for the rest of their life.”

Her passion for food is so strong that it’s all she thinks about. Brodie is practically a food savant. “I never write my recipes down. Once I make something, I don’t need to write it down. I know it by heart. I remember flavor profiles of things, textures, things like that.”

She also loves art and music, and would love to see her live music restaurant concept come to fruition some day, but she made it clear that food and cooking will always be at the forefront of everything she does.

“I am the most inspired and alive when I am in the kitchen,” she said. “I love that I get to keep learning and growing and playing. You should always play with your food.”