Jeanne M. Bauer

The food jour­nal­ism in­dus­try lost a re­spected pro­fes­sional, friend and men­tor to many with the pass­ing of Jeanne M Bauer on May 24, 2024, at home in her beloved New York City.
Born on Sep­tem­ber 5, 1939, in Camp­bell­sport, Jeanne was pre­de­ceased by her par­ents, Floyd Thomas and Mil­dred (Schmitz) Bauer; brother, John F Bauer, Sr.; nephew, Joel Bauer; and great-great-niece, Hope Bauer.
She is sur­vived by six nieces and nephews, Gina Mohr, John Bauer Jr, Jill Carni (Al­bert), Jody Bauer (Laura), Jim Bauer (Shelly); and 16 great-nieces and nephews; and many cousins in Wis­con­sin and Ger­many.
Jeanne was a grad­u­ate of Alverno Col­lege, Mil­wau­kee.
She worked for Unilever early in her ca­reer, and then fol­low­ing her pas­sion for Jour­nal­ism, she moved to New York City to be­come Equip­ment Ed­i­tor at Amer­i­can Home Mag­a­zine. It was a job that helped de­fine Jeanne’s life in so many ways – from re­fin­ing her pas­sion for jour­nal­ism to meet­ing co-work­ers who be­came life-long friends.
In 1978, she was re­cruited by the mar­ket­ing firm Bots­ford Ketchum (now Ketchum Com­mu­ni­ca­tions) and re­lo­cated to San Fran­cisco, where she ex­celled at man­ag­ing food mar­ket­ing pro­grams for clients rang­ing from The Cal­i­for­nia Raisin Ad­vi­sory Board and Cal­i­for­nia Al­monds to Nor­way Sar­dines, Dole Foods, and Cham­bord Liqueur.
Jeanne bal­anced work with her love of travel, the­ater, mu­se­ums, and fre­quent week­end jaunts (in her bright red VW Bug con­vert­ible) to the wine coun­try in Napa and Sonoma Val­leys.
In the mid-1980s, Jeanne re­turned to her much-loved NYC and con­tin­ued her food mar­ket­ing ca­reer at Chiq­uita Brands.
Over the course of her ca­reer, Jeanne de­vel­oped a spe­cial fond­ness for the food­ser­vice in­dus­try. She found great joy in work­ing di­rectly with many top NYC chefs on be­half of her clients.
Ul­ti­mately, Jeanne left the cor­po­rate world and built her own busi­ness, serv­ing as a con­sul­tant to clients in the food and bev­er­age in­dus­try.
Through­out her ca­reer, Jeanne never hes­i­tated to share her wealth of knowl­edge with oth­ers en­ter­ing the in­dus­try, and be­came a val­ued friend and men­tor to many.
Her cre­ativ­ity and in­no­v­a­tive spirit melded seam­lessly with her pas­sion for food. She ex­celled at de­vel­op­ing new and sur­pris­ing ways of serv­ing up her clients’ food and bev­er­age prod­ucts.
Jeanne was a mar­velous cook and took great joy in using fresh sea­sonal in­gre­di­ents from New York’s farm­ers mar­kets as well as prepar­ing recipes she learned from her mother. She loved to en­ter­tain, prepar­ing de­li­cious meals that she served up in a con­vivial at­mos­phere that cel­e­brated her friend­ships as much as the food and wine she served. She fre­quently wel­comed out of town friends and col­leagues into her home, en­thu­si­as­ti­cally shar­ing the best NYC had to offer at that mo­ment in­clud­ing food, cul­ture and her lat­est shop­ping tips. Jeanne al­ways rel­ished the in­vi­ta­tions from her Amer­i­can Home friends who lived out­side the city and would reg­u­larly wel­come her into their homes for week­ends, hol­i­day fes­tiv­i­ties and week-long re­treat to the coun­try.
Giv­ing back to the city, she called home was very im­por­tant to Jeanne. For many years, she vol­un­teered through her church, St. John The Evan­ge­list Catholic Church, to bring food and com­pan­ion­ship to NYC shut-ins and se­niors.
Do­na­tions may be made in Jeanne’s mem­ory to The James Beard Foun­da­tion’s Women’s Lead­er­ship Pro­grams name as fol­lows:
Do­na­tion Link: https://​donate.​jamesbeard.​org/​give/​66854/#!/​donation/​checkout
Donors should check the box “Ded­i­cate my do­na­tion in honor or in mem­ory of some­one” – Jeanne M Bauer.
Al­ter­na­tively, checks can be mailed to:
James Beard Foun­da­tion
Attn: De­vel­op­ment
167 W. 12th St.
New York, NY 10011
Please in­di­cate do­na­tion is for the Women’s Lead­er­ship Pro­grams in mem­ory of Jeanne M Bauer.