Crosby owner and executive chef, Jeanette Prasifka, is a pioneer and leading advocate for healthy cooking in Dallas.

Chef Jeanette, a vegetarian for over 30 years, has mastered the craft of preparing high quality, plant based dishes. Her culinary creations delight and impress everyone who experiences her cooking, especially those who are accustomed to a traditional meat-centric diet.

Having grown up in Lake Highlands and on the shore of White Rock Lake, Chef Jeanette is proud to be a native East-Dallasite. Never a big meat eater as a child, the catalyst to her becoming a vegetarian was reading Upton Sinclair’s The Jungle, a novel about the meat packing industry in Chicago, when she was 16. At the same time she began experimenting in the kitchen and quickly discovered she had a talent for cooking.

15 years ago, when she decided to elevate her natural cooking skills to a professional level, there was no one in Dallas that could teach her the specialties she wanted to learn, so she traveled to the Natural Gourmet Institute in New York City and attended an immersion program in international vegetarian cuisine. With new professional techniques in place, she returned home and began developing recipes and cooking non-stop. Her food soon developed a following and she began receiving numerous invitations to cook for parties and special events. In 2001, she launched Crosby Catering & Coffee as a way to both provide and teach healthy eating. Crosby is a full-service catering company specializing in a wide variety of vegetarian fare - from lacto-ovo to vegan to raw. Through Crosby, Chef Jeanette provides a multitude of services including cooking classes, personal chef work, corporate services and catering ranging from intimate dinner parties to large receptions. In addition, Crosby has its own line of 100% organic, Fair Trade, shade-grown coffees and Chef Jeanette markets hand crafted vegan dog treats, aptly named Crosby’s Canine Cookies!

During the past several years, Chef Jeanette has been featured on cooking stages at the Texas State Fair, Dallas’ CityArts Festival, National Women’s Heart Day, The Great American Meatout, Taste of Dallas, and Women's Expo, as well as several other specialty events.

When she’s not in the kitchen, Chef Jeanette is busy planning her “dream kitchen”, which is currently under construction, and authoring her first vegan cookbook. In her leisure time, Jeanette enjoys exploring ethnic food markets, reading cookbooks, vegetable gardening, and entertaining family and friends.