Did You Bring the Hummus? with Kimberly Winters Episode 123 - Vegana Italiana with Chef Tara Punzone & Writer Gene Stone
***My New Jersey accent has rendered me unable to pronounce Pura ViTa multiple times in a short time frame so at the end you'll hear me saying what sounds like Pura ViDa, please know that Tara's restaurant is called Pura Vita and all links in the show notes are correct. *** :-)
Today, I am joined by Chef Tara Punzone and writer Gene Stone.
Tara is the founder of the award-winning Pura Vita restaurants in Los Angeles. Pura Vita is the first 100% Plant-Based Italian Restaurant and Wine Bar in the USA. A trailblazer in vegan Italian cuisine, Tara has been featured in Bon Appétit, Eater, and the Los Angeles Times. Chef Tara grew up in an Italian American home in New York, and has thrived on a vegan diet for over 35 years. Her passion for healthy southern Italian food has been evolving since her childhood when she made the decision to adopt a vegan lifestyle. It was then Tara began converting all her family’s traditional dishes to vegan versions of the same, without compromise. Vegana Italiana is her first book.
Gene Stone – A graduate of Stanford and Harvard, Gene is a former Peace Corps volunteer and newspaper editor for such companies as the Los Angeles, Times, Esquire, and Simon & Schuster. He has written more than a dozen books under his own name on a wide variety of subjects and has also ghostwritten or co-written another thirty-five books for a very diverse lot of people, many of which have been national bestsellers. However, for the past fifteen years he has concentrated mainly on writing or ghostwriting books about plant-based diets and their relationship to animal protection, health, and the environment. Among these books are such titles as Forks Over Knives, 72 Reasons to Be Vegan, How Not to Die, Living the Farm Sanctuary Life, Eat for the Planet, The Engine 2 Diet, and Animalkind.
To connect with Tara:
Website (you can buy Vegana Italiana here): https://puravitalosangeles.com/
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/puravita_la/ Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/cheftarapunzone/
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/PuraVitaLosAngeles/
To connect with Gene:
Visit his website www.genestone.com
To connect with me:
Follow me on Facebook and Instagram @didyoubringthehummus
For more info on my Public Speaking 101 program: https://www.didyoubringthehummus.com/publicspeakingforactivists
Contact me here or send me an email at info@didyoubringthehummus.com
Sign up for meditation sessions here
Sign up for The Vegan Voyage, to sponsor the podcast, book meditations packages, or sign up for my Public Speaking program here
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©2025 Kimberly Winters - Did You Bring the Hummus LLC
Theme Song ©2020 JP Winters @musicbyjpw