I really like food. A lot. I suppose this sentiment isn’t particularly unique, but it’s not just the processes of eating and cooking that I love. For me, it’s about the power that food and drink have to bring people together. Through food you can learn about someone’s personality, thei...
more >I really like food. A lot. I suppose this sentiment isn’t particularly unique, but it’s not just the processes of eating and cooking that I love. For me, it’s about the power that food and drink have to bring people together. Through food you can learn about someone’s personality, their past and their heritage, even their outlook on life.
Over the last four years I’ve split my time between North Carolina, New Jersey, New York City, cooking and eating my way across these three places I alternatively call “home”. I’ve been a student at Duke University since 2004, carving out a rather eccentric gastronomic niche for myself while also working toward my undergraduate degree. I pursued majors in both Economics and History, technically building my studies around a pre-law and pre-business track, but somehow managing to write term papers on applications of behavioral economics to the restaurant setting or doing comparative case studies on Nestle and Kraft. Supposedly I’m still on this professional track—I’m just a bit diverted at present—so we’ll see where I end up.
At Duke I was the editor for the food section of the Chronicle, the student newspaper, for three years, writing about restaurants and dining trends, trying to get my fellow students away from chains and into the local restaurant scene. I also chaired the university’s student dining advisory committee—think student government, but all food all the time, dealing with upwards of two dozen independent campus vendors, union labor, and notoriously fickle college students—for two years. Now in my senior year, I’ve also started helping organize and lead wine tastings and mixology lectures for students and faculty. It’s a lot, but I love it. It sure beats doing papers and econ problem sets.
Since 2006 I’ve also run an underground dining club called Z Kitchen out of my apartment at Duke, garnering myself a bit of attention from all kinds of places. The good: the New York Times, the San Francisco Chronicle, the Today show. The not-so-good: county zoning and health departments, prying local journalists. Armed with a no-frills kitchen, an on-campus apartment built circa-1970, and an integral playlist that spans from Miles Davis to Beirut to Broken Social Scene, I’ve hosted dozens of private dinner parties serving my own take on creative, modern food. It’s been a blast, stressful at times, immensely rewarding throughout, and I’ve met some truly great people in my exploits.
It is this entrepreneurial, free-thinking spirit that I want to share with others and continue to develop. I want to learn as much as possible, exchange ideas, and create. For the next year I’ll be working on a book about the changing face of American gastronomy and will surely find other unlikely projects to keep me busy. I’m open to your ideas. < less
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