Cinda Webb was born into a family of teachers and raised in Southern California. After graduating from University of California, Irvine with a degree in linguistics, she married and began teaching elementary school. She and her husband made the choice for her to stay home with her kids after her first of two sons was born. When her sons started school, she accepted a position as librarian of their school where she was able to pioneer some innovative classroom and library technology.

In 2001, when her eldest son graduated from 8th grade, she began homeschooling her two sons. During this time, she was able to not only learn alongside them, but to also explore her interest in healthy eating and locally-sourced food. She was also able to tend her own garden in urban So Cal…with chickens and all. Her quest to be able to preserve chicken stock without taking up freezer space led her to pressure canning and the local University of California Cooperative Extension Master Food Preserver program. She graduated as a Master Food Preserver in 2012.

Her continued involvement with the MFP program lead to more and more opportunities to share her teaching and coordinating gifts with a growing audience at venues ranging from the Great Park Food Lab to the Orange County Fair. Cinda is often recognized for her teaching and organizational skills and in 2017 she was asked to be the Coordinator for the UCCE Master Food Preserver program in Orange County, CA.

As a learner, she continued exploring techniques beyond food preservation. This led to exploring skills in healthy food preparation including cheese and pasta and also wholesome bath products and lotions.

Cinda values and supports vendors who locally source for fruits, vegetables and humanely-raised meats. This helped her stay connected with healthy, local foods, and gave her additional opportunities to teach food preservation to a broader audience.

In 2018, she and her husband felt a calling to focus on her teaching gifts and to find a way to share what she has learned in her experience as a leading educator in food preservation. Their quest took them outside of California to a town they had been visiting yearly for 15 years: Grand Junction, Colorado. Here they found a healthy mix of modern sensibilities and agriculture. So they bought and remodeled a small home in the Redlands area focused on a kitchen-centric design with enough room to comfortably teach small classes.

Cinda’s love for food and healthy eating is contagious. Spend some time with her and you’ll not only likely learn something new, you’ll be inspired to learn more and create some healthy and tasty things along the way.