Anyone who knows me knows that my life revolves around food. I love to talk about food, travel for food, cook food, eat food and I spend a lot of my free time reading about food. My favorite writing explores the backstories behind a particular ingredient or dish, demonstrating how food serves as an entry point for learning more about the people and culture of a particular place.
I grew up the daughter of a chocolatier, in a food-obsessed family that was always plotting our next meal or sharing memories of meals past while consuming the meal before us. Hiking to an Alpine hut for a meal of kaiserschmarrn and Tiroler gröstl was a typical vacation activity. While most kids were reading Teen Beat or Bop Magazine, I was geeking out over the current issue of Saveur.
A transformative trip to Italy in my teens (thank you, Shapers of the World) converted me into a lifelong Italophile—I lived in Florence and Venice in my twenties, studying art history and Italian language, while discovering the best places for ribollita and cichetti. I traveled throughout Italy, feasting on bread dumplings called canederli in the Dolomites, eating multiple plates of tortelli di zucca (pumpkin-filled pasta) in Mantova and experiencing the pleasures of gelato in brioche in Palermo. I loved exploring firsthand the regional differences in so-called “Italian” food.
I settled in Chicago to pursue a career at the Art Institute of Chicago, spending most of my free time exploring neighborhood restaurants and dive bars. With the pull of a career in food ever present, I ultimately found my way to Eataly (the Italian culinary Mecca), where I crafted a cooking school curriculum with a focus on regional foodways. It was rewarding to research and host classes on topics such as Cucina Ebraica (Italian-Jewish cooking) and the Arab influence on the Sicilian kitchen.
I lived most recently in Mexico City, where I developed a deep love of Mexican street food, regional dishes and cantina culture. I delighted in the riot of color, sounds and smells emanating from the stalls in our neighborhood but I fell hardest for the roving street vendors. I loved running downstairs to grab a camote (a hot sweet potato topped with sweetened condensed milk and cinnamon) from the vendor who pushed a rolling stove through the streets after dark, his presence announced by the ear-piercing whistle produced when he released steam from his stovepipe.
Now that I've returned to Chicago, I get my culinary exploration fix by eating my way through Chicago’s vibrant dining scene, watching food docuseries (Netflix’s Taco Chronicles is a current favorite), diving into cookbooks and taking periodic trips. I'm creating this Substack as a platform to pursue my food-focused curiosities, to delve deeper into the culinary, geographic and historical linkages underpinning the origins of cuisine. I hope you’ll join me in digging into these stories.