About

Cora has been cooking her whole life. She remembers making her first “really hard recipe,” a lemon meringue pie from scratch, at the age of eight with her mom close by her side. When she was thirteen, she would sit on a chair in the sunny backyard of her childhood home and copy down recipes into a little red book. Some she made up herself, and the rest came from books like Better Homes and Gardens JUNIOR Cook Book for the Hostess and Host of Tomorrow.

Now, Cora owns Raw Melissa, a wholesale and private order company specializing in healthy meals and gourmet desserts whipped up with the freshest ingredients. She offers online and in-person nutrition coaching and is the author of a cookbook called FAVES, a collection of her clients’ favorite Raw Melissa recipes. Cora was the “Sweets Expert” for The Healthy Living Kids Show, an internet TV program out of Valencia, California, and was a contributor to the recently released book, Happy Days, Healthy Living by Cathy Silvers of Happy Days. She also has a recipe DVD series that will be available on June 1, 2010.

Outside of FOOD, Cora is also lucky enough to have been a doula (birth assistant), Doula Trainer, and childbirth educator for over a decade, having helped several hundred couples during pregnancy and childbirth.

Nicolas grew up near the lovely shoreline of Lake Michigan. He has been fascinated and motivated by music all his life, but found his appreciation of food increasing as the years rolled by. This was especially apparent when he worked his up to head baker/manager at a small artisan bread company in Northern Michigan. After a few years of this, the sounds of music brought him over the Great Pond and smack dab in the middle of Liverpool, England, where he studied music composition and performance at LIPA before returning stateside.

While helping his brother open a European-style cafe, he immersed himself in the art of Gelato making, and honed his skills at Italian pizza baking and French crepe spinning.

Nicolas now owns a food company where one can experience the delights of Christofori’s Truffle Bazaar and Dough Emporium.

He currently divides his time between experimenting with recipes at his and Cora’s commercial kitchen, and playing and composing music for the audience in his head.