The New School Kitchen

A discussion with Ryanna Battiste

By Jordyn Zimmerman

I recently had the chance to sit down and catch up with an amazing woman and my good friend, Ryanna Battiste. We met at one of our favorite local spots, Tidal Creek Co-op for some tasty green juice and yummy golden milk.

Ry (as she is affectionately known among her friends) is the founder of The New School Kitchen, an online business designed to help busy people cook real food in less time so they can heal their bodies and love their lives. How freaking awesome is that?!

I have known Ry for over seven years and we have both been on a serious food journey through that time, both together and separately. In fact at one point we were writing a business plan to open a local Healthy Eating Café! Thankfully the universe guided us away from that project because we would probably both look and feel significantly less healthy if we were doing the restaurant grind.

But thanks to Ry’s knowledge and passion around real food, you can turn your kitchen into a café of your own. You just have to visit her online home—no fancy cooking school tuition required! My favorite way to watch her work her kitchen magic is on her Facebook page when she gets on Facebook Live and cooks right there with you and for you. She’s cute and feisty and Italian (so you know it’s always going to be fun, and a little bit loud!).

Ry’s previous business, Grub, was a brick-and-mortar education center, that offered in-person classes and workshops, and where she first began coaching clients to love themselves with good clean food. “What I’ve realized in those years at the Grub-house was that you can teach people about healthy eating all you want, and you can give them recipes all day long, but the bottom line is that change in the kitchen is hard and change in general, at least the kind that sticks around, can be slow!”

After realizing that her clients were eager to make changes but really struggled getting on their feet and executing, Ry decided to attend Duke Integrative Medicine’s Health Coaching program and become a Certified Health Coach. “Duke really taught me about neuroplasticity and how the brain forms new habits, and that’s when the game really changed for me! The connection of the body to the mind is really important for habit change and healing, and so my new approach was born. I help people change their habits with powerful coaching prompts, both in my videos and group coaching calls for members. It all comes down to mindset! This new approach has yielded some pretty incredible results with my members.”

Her newest initiative, New School You, kicking off April 23, 2018, is a totally-free online experience that gives it’s participants a chance to get on their feet and do more cooking, guided by Ry and her fun and inspirational videos.

So how did Wilmington get so lucky to have Ryanna Battiste and her brilliance pop up here? As a real estate Broker I am always fascinated to learn why people end up where they do. Here is my chat with Ry about Wilmington and why she will always make a home here:

Jordyn Zimmerman: Where are you from originally and why did you come to Wilmington?
Ryanna Battiste: I am originally from the New York Metropolitan area. Twelve years ago my husband Nick and I got married and we were looking at different places around the country that felt progressive and had a film and theater scene. We were looking at cities like Portland, Oregon and Boulder, Colorado and then, kind-of less appealing but also less expensive to travel to, little old Wilmington, North Carolina. Nick had gone to school in Winston Salem and he used to spring break on Wrightsville Beach, so we visited, stayed on the beach and drove all over town. We were sold in under 24 hours! After living together in 350 square feet in Brooklyn we were totally enchanted by the bungalow scene (our first home was in Sunset Park) and knew there was something really special about this place. It’s been amazing to watch the area just explode over the last decade!

JZ: Do you think you’ll ever leave?
RB: I think I will always make some kind of home in Wilmington. If I were to leave it would be to have a second home in another climate, but really, this is it. My kids were born here. And I really love this community! It has unconditionally supported me through nearly seven years of growing a small business.

JZ: What is your favorite part of your home?
RB: More space for kids to grow! We now have a family/bonus room, a wide street with sidewalks, 100-year-old oaks all around, and it’s safe for my kids to ride bikes and play. It feels like America to me…it feels like my childhood!

JZ: What would your dream home include?
RB: My 1950s rancher not far from downtown is my dream home! I would just want to fix it up to be an even better home as my boys grow and my work-from-home business continues to expand. I would love a screened in porch to escape the bugs of summer and enjoy my favorite season, an outdoor shower, and a big walk-in pantry in the kitchen! If we are dreaming here, I would also add a master bath with a big soaking tub for me, of course.

JZ: What do you love most about Wilmington and why?
RB: The downtown and the beach make it feel like not just a random suburban town. It’s historic, it’s a destination. It’s life in a vacation town! I never work on Fridays, ever. Fridays are my day to feel like I’m on vacation. If it’s even a little bit warm, I’ll go the beach, drive with the windows down and music blaring, or make a point to visit a friend or take the kids to a park and leave my phone in the car. I left the rat-race for a reason. Even though I work incredibly hard, I also try really hard not to get swept up in the “busy-ness” of life. Fridays in Wilmington help me do that.

JZ: What is your dream vacation?
RB: It’s really about laziness to me. I don’t really want to do a whole lot of site-seeing or staring at art. I’ll troop around just to look for food and then sit down and people watch while I eat. And then take pictures of my food! To be totally honest, for the next ten years I would love to just be able to take my children around the United States. I want to experience more of my own country, it’s massive. I’ve never been to Montana. I’ve never even been to the Grand Canyon! So maybe my dream vacation is actually an old-school motor-home trip around the continental US. But only if I have my own master bath and soaking tub separate from the boys.

JZ: What is your favorite food?
RB: In a world where I don’t have sensitivities? I think it’s all the cheese melted on all the bread! No, no, scratch that. I think a really good Thai Curry makes me truly the happiest. The Thai are just masters at hitting all the notes; so you get creamy and spicy and salty and sour and umami and fish sauce and veggies and rice and mmmm all at once.

JZ: What is one thing about Wilmington that surprised you?
RB: Our local community of women! Really strong, really passionate, and really welcoming and loving. I have found the mom-culture here to be very inclusive. There are a lot of very powerful women in this town, and we all really lift each other up and support each other when needed. It’s been my best growing experience, having this tribe of women to carry me through the complexities of modern-day motherhood.

JZ: If you didn’t have to work what would you be doing?
RB:  I probably would have some sort of non-profit around cooking and eating, helping under-educated women learn to cook! Also, I would be at the beach more. And if I didn’t have to work that must mean I have lots of cash, so I would be buying incredible high-quality ingredients to cook with… like more local fish!

JZ: Would you rather: Surf or boogie board?
RB: Oh boogie board, there’s no way I’m standing up on anything! Total suicide.

JZ: Go way back in time and meet your ancestors or go to the future and meet your great great grandchildren?
RB: I’d go to the future. Going back in time feels scary for me, what if I get trapped there?! I was way more disturbed when Marty McFly went to the past. I’m a future-oriented person!

JZ: Win the lottery or live twice as long?
RB: Twice as long. Then I’d have more opportunity to make a boatload of money and feel like I won the lottery!

JZ: Go without salt for life or without apple cider vinegar for life?
RB: I need the salt. Food is brought to life with salt!

Please check out The New School Kitchen, and Ry’s newest initiative, New School You, and come visit her in Wilmington, NC. We have salty air, fun people and delicious food!

Jordyn Zimmerman is a Broker at Nest Realty Wilmington. Jordyn believes buying a house is serious business but that it should also be fun and exciting!

Photos courtesy of Susie Linquist.
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