What I Offer
Vita’s Services
Partnership With Farms
Allow me to create a cooking session or series around the produce from your garden or farm. The session can be socially distanced or virtual.
For-the-fun-of-it Virtual Cooking Sessions
Let me curate a cooking experience based on your needs and vision, from kids’ gatherings, birthday parties, happy hours, and more.
Team Building
Foster connection and community among teammates and employees, with a vegan cooking session.
Come On Into My Kitchen
For more than 25 years I’ve been perfecting vegan versions of my favorite dishes. 2020 marked my recommitment to sharing my love of life-affirming food, so come on into my kitchen, a space of creativity, love, healing, and remembrance, for my food work was born out of the loss of my mom to cancer in 1996.
CLIENT TESTIMONIALS
Destinee Johnson: 11th Street Bridge Cooking Series
“I had the pleasure of planning and working the Levita Mondie 4 weeks during the month of September on a cooking series entitled: Cooking with Vita the Vegan Chef. This was an amazing series where Levita and moderator Maya took our organization’s online audiences through the preparation of several feel good vegan fall recipes! Levita brought herself to the table every week sharing her passion for food and wellness with us. She prepared documents for watchers that detailed the health benefits of certain ingredients; shared tips and tricks for preparation and even engaged audiences with trivia games and thematic games to keep folks excited throughout the hour long cooking session! I enjoyed cooking on screen with her and seeing her interact with online audiences! Not only was she thoughtful and great to work with– the meals we prepared together were DELICIOUS! I would recommend her sessions to anyone. She always was professional & timely on the administrative side & as an event planner I appreciate that immensely. During this series, she really showed that you don’t have to be fully vegan to make healthier choices in your diet. It’s the small changes today that can help you to have a healthier lifestyle. Levita came in.”
Monica Utsey: Mother's Day Brunch
“Lawd have mercy! I cooked this! Levita Mondie you are one amazing vegan chef!!!! This was a very special way to spend Mother’s Day – in the kitchen preparing an amazingly unique vegan meal on zoom with women from across the country. We started by saying our mother’s name and one word to describe her. Honoring my mother through food has blessed me and eased the pain of not having her in the physical realm. Vegan blueberry pancake with orange essential oils, two kinds of sweet potatoes, and chia pudding with blueberries. I think the reason why some people don’t like vegan food is because they have never had Levita’s food! Even a hardcore carnivore would love her food.
These pancakes are a far cry from my sweet potato epic fail. Please sign me up for every, single, class. Since I don’t eat out anymore, I had to make peace with the kitchen. In the process, I have developed a desire for whole foods. I think with Levita’s help I could finally go vegan (well, at least 80% because when I am in Ghana, I will have fish). We are still chatting and eating and class has long ended. I feel like we are sitting at the table together. Thank you so much again Levita for sharing with us on Mother’s Day. I would love a class on how to incorporate mushrooms into recipes and more superfoods.“
Doug Fishman: Tikkun Hair-Ir, Repair the City
“Levita Mondie teaches to her passions: vegan cooking, food equity, history and emerging adolescents, who instantly connect with what she has to offer, because it speaks to their world, while putting present issues in an historical context. She brought her talents and passions together this summer to reach a group of teenage Jewish activists who were taking part in a week-long program called Tikkun Ha’Ir, or repairing the city. During the program, they learned about poverty, homelessness, racial justice and cross cultural relations between African Americans and Jewish Americans. For three days, they lived on a SNAP (Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, historically known as Food Stamps) allowance, while trying to eat healthfully—and deliciously—and that’s where Levita came in.
A vegan chef and teacher, Levita gave the teens a Zoom lesson she called “Love In The Time of Covid,” on how to cook her signature black bean burgers, made from beans, beets, onions, garlic, oats and more—and a special sauce! But the life lessons came when Levita put food in the proper context for the work the teens were doing. She talked to them about poverty, nutrition and food deserts, putting her Anacostia neighborhood, her family history as well as her lived experiences in the center of her story. The students were immediately engaged, and soon everybody was talking, tasting, laughing and raving about what they created. It cost just a few dollars, but Levita’s lesson will last with them a lifetime.“
Prince Botchway: Royal Athletes Summer Camp
“Vita the Vegan Chef is absolutely amazing! She led and taught our youth campers how to make black bean burgers! Not only were the burgers tasty and delicious but our campers gained so much knowledge and information on tips to eating healthy and the benefits each ingredient provided. We absolutely loved the cooking session and plan to do more!“
Vita’s Latest Cooking Series
Recently, the 11 Street Bridge Park invited me to do a 4-part cooking series in partnership with their urban farms. For each session, I curated vegan recipes that featured produce from their farms. Destinee Johnson, program administrator, cooked along with me on camera. Maya Botchway moderated each session. which involved sharing the agenda, recipe steps, and purported, health benefits of key ingredients that I researched. I loved this collaboration because of the Bridge Park’s commitment to creating equitable access to healthy food options.
Collard Greens
The fourth and final session of the series featured collard greens. We chopped the greens finely and preserved the nutrients by not adding any additional water to the pot. After making the greens, I showed participants some cultural fusion by making collard green...
Easy, Delicious Berry Crumble
In session one, we made an easy, delicious berry crumble that featured blueberries from the farms. The beautiful part about this recipe is that six cups of any fresh fruit will work!
Roasted Butternut Squash
Roasted butternut squash with a glaze made from maple syrup and bourbon was the focus of session two. I demonstrate how to peel and cut up the squash. We even played some bourbon trivia. The dish itself takes around 20 minutes to bake and will make a great holiday...