A self-admitted foodie

As go many retrospectively manipulated and nicely packaged and polished stories, I have come full circle and back to my roots. It’s a funny exercise, looking at where you stumbled upon today and trying to make the journey to this point make sense, or at least fit on a single page CV. You tend to leave out a lot, overemphasize certain experiences that at the time were irrelevant and stretch the impact had by various mentors and projects on your personal and professional development. With that being said, I’ll try to be as forthright as possible regarding my relationship with food, but it is a story, even if mostly true.

I like to think hospitality is in my blood. I grew up working in my families’ country in and at the age of 13 could prepare a full course country breakfast for a dozen guests with my hands tied behind my back. That being said, with similar ease I set my oven on fire last week making toast. I have been a barista in a sketchy coffee shop, worked behind the bar at a restaurant that could have been a case study on sexual harassment, and facilitated wine tastings at a French venue (which really just meant I had the privilege of holding the spit bucket during tastings). There is something in me loves the colorful characters I have met along the way, the good and questionable material in the kitchen, and the unparalleled passion, work ethic, honesty and creativity that I have learned to associate with this industry.

I’ve spent four years exploring the tastes of this city, celebrating its chefs, and spending most of my discretionary income on food and wine. I love to talk about food, learn about it and it was only recently that it clicked that there may be viable career opportunities related to this industry, I’m just not exactly sure what they are…So for now, I’m going to continue doing what I’m doing: one off consulting projects for places like Brooklyn Winery, interning with culinary role-models like Danny Meyer at Union Square Hospitality Group, (now) writing about my epicurean adventures and hoping at the end of the day, I end up where I am supposed to be. This will not just be a food blog, but something along those lines, so I encourage you to tune in if you happen to like eating, or reading, or laughing, or if you are simply curious or confused by my introduction to this nebulous project.