Dana Cowin is an evangelist of good food and good people, coach for creatives, former longtime Editor in Chief of Food & Wine Magazine, host of podcast Speaking Broadly, and creator of Giving Broadly, a website to highlight products (aka good food) by women entrepreneurs (aka good people) that make our lives more delicious.

3 words to describe Nature?

Spirit. Respite. Beauty

3 things Nature taught you?

Nature’s design is more creative than human design. 

Nature teaches resilience. It just never gives up.

Nature teaches that death is a transformation.

3 most treasured Nature spots?

The brambles in Central Park, NYC.

The ocean beside my childhood house in Florida

The sanctuary trails in upstate NY

When you look at the ocean, it makes you feel…?

Awe. The relentless water breathing its way to the sand and receding is extraordinary.

When you see a forest, it makes you feel…?

Spritely. I love looking at the light, rocks, movement.

When you see a volcano, it makes you feel…?

Never seen a volcano!

When you see a sunrise or sunset, it makes you feel…?

At peace with beginnings and endings that are grounded in time passing and color changing.

When you hear thunder, it makes you feel…?

Like burrowing, getting cozy, being still, listening to the future or past that the sound represents

When you hear the wind howling, it makes you feel…?

Cold, even if I’m not experiencing the wind. I shudder at the thought.

Are you an Ocean, Mountain, Forest, or Desert person?

Meadows and fields

On a scale of 1 to 10, how important is Nature to your well-being?

10

Share with us a childhood nature memory?

I was caught outside a riptide in the ocean in Florida and a bystander rescued me. I’m forever in awe of the power of the ocean to nurture and destroy…and the kindness of strangers to change lives with simple acts of generosity.