About Us
We met 36 years ago over a jelly donut, so I guess we should have seen this coming - a marriage of Mark’s love of feeding your belly and my love of feeding your spirit and the birth of our real food recipes blog, The Bread and Buddha…real food for the soul. (We have two teenage boys too!)
Mark’s from Jersey and has the attitude, minus the gold chain, to prove it. By day he’s owns a Chicago-based ad agency. By weekend, he’s a home chef guru. He honed his cooking chops dining in Manhattan’s finest restaurants as a kid with his foodie parents and watching his mom whip up six-course dinners. As restaurant regulars, they got to know many of the NYC chefs so well that they would invite them to... their... house... for... dinner! Like I said, they’re from Jersey – so they got balls. Now, Mark and I host pretty elaborate multi-course dinner parties for friends in our own home. Every plate art directed and every meal blows our guests away. Mark’s got skillz – taste buds don’t lie. Cooking is his passion, and if opening a restaurant were a good idea, we would have done it long ago.
For Me…I’m from Chicago and it was all meatballs or matzah balls in my Jewish-Italian home. Food was an expression of love. It took me a long time, though, to realize much of what I was eating was making me feel pretty lousy. As a yoga teacher and holistic health coach, I brought my own health back into balance and created my program called Feal Real™…a wellness journey for enjoying an authentic life, and its food-focused plan called Heartful-Eating™. You can read more about my programs on my own site at www.pamgross.com. My desire to have lots of delicious, healthy real food recipes to support my wellbeing inspired me to create this blog. So partnering with the best chef I’ve ever known was a no-brainer.
So what’s The Bread and Buddha? It’s where delicious real food and love collide. It’s our virtual dream restaurant. It’s where Mark and I will share recipes, reviews, ideas, tips and thoughts about feeding your belly and feeding your spirit to support you on your journey to find your own authentic wellness.
Together, Mark and I play the balancing act. He’s salty. I’m sweet. He prefers the gym. I prefer yoga. He likes rap. I don’t. He's wacky - you've been warned! But we both stay committed to good health 90% of time and indulge 10% of the time. Life is for the living and saying “no” all the time is no way to live. Don't let the pretty pictures or the fancy plating (Mark can't help himself) fool you. It gets messy over here. So, at The Bread and Buddha, we’ll serve up plenty of real food recipes to stay healthy and plenty to indulge. Read our recipe notes and look for the "HEARTFUL RECIPE" label at the bottom of the recipe to determine which ones fall within the 90%, and which don’t. All recipes are tested and delicious. No obscure ingredients, Just real food for the soul.
To learn how to live your most vibrant and authentic life, please visit my Cooking Studio & Wellness Workspace at
