![[Wesleyan University]](http://www.wesleyan.edu/common/_internal/files/logo.png "Wesleyan University front door"){kind=logo}
For more information, contact FOODSTOCK at
foodstock@wesleyan.edu
FOODSTOCK 2012 Speakers and Guests
Eric Asimov '79 P'13 is the chief wine critic of The New York Times. Asimov created the $25 and Under restaurant reviews in 1992 and wrote them through 2004. He is a co-author of "The New York Times Guide to Restaurants 2004," the fifth edition of the guide. At The Times, he was editor of the Living section from 1991 to 1994 and editor of Styles of The Times from 1994 to 1995.
Amy Bloom ‘75 is the author of two novels and three collections of short stories, and she has been a nominee for both the National Book Award and the National Book Critics Circle Award. Her stories have appeared in Best American Short Stories and The O. Henry Prize Stories. Her latest novel, Away, is an epic story about a Russian immigrant. Her new collection of short stories, Where the God of Love Hangs Out, has just been released.
Kashia Cave is the Founder and President of My City Kitchen, Inc. A proud mother of 2 boys, celebrating 16 years of marriage, she has a second love for culinary. She’s a graduate of Lincoln Culinary Institute formerly (Connecticut Culinary Institute) and the Italian Culinary Institute for Foreigners (ICIF) in Costigliole-D’Asti, Italy.
Tressa Eaton ‘09 is the New York Editor for TastingTable.com. Eaton has worked with Serious Eats, Apartment Therapy, Martha Stewart Living, Food & Wine and Gourmet. Eaton is a graduate of Wesleyan University, where she wrote her thesis on canning. She has also worked on farms in Spain, Virginia and Connecticut, and as a cheesemonger.
Jacob Eichengreen ‘13 entered the coffee industry at the age of 15. During his sophomore year at Wesleyan, he was hired as one of the original four baristas at the student-run cafe Espwesso. Currently, as its general manager, Jacob is responsible for the day-to-day operations and conducts rigorous staff trainings to ensure proficiency at the near-competition standard cafe. Jacob is a junior in the College of Social Studies with a focus on development issues in East Africa.
Cara Eisenpress writes and edits Big Girls Small Kitchen, a food website for twenty-something cooks looking for user-friendly, affordable ways to navigate their kitchens. BGSK offers accessible recipes, entertaining tips, and kitchen strategies to help all home cooks of limited resources—whether time, space, money, or skill—make the most of their tools available, big kitchen or small. BGSK is based on Cara’s own experiences and experiments in her small kitchen in Brooklyn.
John E. Finn is Professor of Government at Wesleyan University. He holds a J.D. (Georgetown University), a Ph.D. in political science (Princeton University), and a degree in culinary arts from the French Culinary Institute. His works in the field of food studies include contributions to Food, Culture, and Society and Gastronomica. His most recent article is “The Perfect Recipe: Taste and Tyranny, Cooks and Citizens,” in Food, Culture, and Society. He is also the author of Constitutions in Crisis: Political Violence and the Rule of Law (1991) and coauthor of American Constitutional Law: Essays, Cases, and Comparative Notes (2009).
Arturo and Suzette Franco-Camacho currently own and operate Tacuba and Swill wine bar in Branford, CT. They previously ran Roomba and Bespoke in New Haven.
Sara Kate Gillingham-Ryan '97 is the founding editor of Apartment Therapy’s “The Kitchn”, an award-winning cooking website. She is also the author of two cookbooks, The Greyston Bakery Cookbook and Good Food to Share. She has written nationally syndicated food articles for Tribune Media and done writing and recipe development work for Bon Appétit, Food & Wine, O Magazine, the Wall Street Journal, and the Washington Post.
Josh Goldin ‘00 is co-founder and managing partner of Alliance Consumer Growth (“ACG”), a New York-based private equity fund which invests in fast-growing food, beverage and restaurant companies. Josh is also a board member of Lessing’s Inc., a 120-year old foodservice company which operates over 100 locations including restaurants, cafeterias and catering venues.
Miriam Gottfried ‘05 is a business reporter for Barron’s magazine and The Wall Street Journal. Since 2006, she has been writing “The Mango Lassie: Going Gourmet on a Shoestring Budget", a blog featuring reviews of inexpensive restaurants around the country and the world. In addition to the blog, Gottfried has reviewed restaurants for New York magazine and Chicago magazine. She has also written about food and wine for Barron’s, The Wall Street Journal and The Oregonian.
Dorie Greenspan P '01 has written 10 cookbooks and has won six James Beard and IACP awards for them, including Cookbook of the Year for Desserts by Pierre Herme and Around My French Table. She also been named to the James Beard Foundation's Who's Who of Food and Beverage in America. She is the co-author of two cookbooks with Pierre Hermé, Paris's king of pastry; she wrote the Café Boulud Cookbook with Daniel Boulud; and had the great honor and terrific fun of writing Baking with Julia, for Julia Child.
Alex Ketchum ‘12 has recently completed her undergraduate thesis, “Food’s Gender Problem: an Ecofeminist History of Unremunerated Domestic Food Production,” in which she analyzed the writings about housework, specifically cooking, done by the American women liberationists of the late 1960s through mid-1970s and compared their work to their contemporary environmental movement. Next year she will be continuing her her research on Feminist Restaurants at McGill University.
Chi-Hoon Kim '06 is an Anthropology of Food PhD Student at Indiana University. A graduate of Wesleyan University and The School of Oriental and African Studies, she has also worked at the Conflict Prevention and Peace Forum, a think-tank for the United Nations in New York City. Her research interests include gastrodiplomacy, food neophobia, and culinary tourism.
Amy Kundrat is the executive editor and partner in CT bites, a food blog about great food in Connecticut. Amy is the founder and principal of ARK Projects and a Director of New Media for a private institution; when not shamelessly promoting her clients, she is a blogging, running and cycling enthusiast with a passion for food, taco crawls and her Ducati at motoamy.
Will Levitt ’12 is the creator of the blog Dorm Room Dinner and and author of a thesis on Italian cuisine. He has interned at the websites Serious Eats and Food52, and currently works at Edible Nutmeg. He’s a contributor to SeriousEats, Big Girls, Small Kitchen and more.
Pippa Lord, Elle magazine's photo director, founded the site Sous Style: A New Generation of Homemakers, for hip, young, Martha Stewart types. It includes all the expected baking recipes, décor tips, and a restaurant guide. Her motto is “Strive for the ‘imperfect perfect’”.
Priscilla Martel is a chef, educator and food writer with a special interest in artisan baking, the pastry arts and the flavorful foods of the Mediterranean. Priscilla is the co-author of the award-winning culinary textbook On Baking: A Textbook of Baking and Pastry Fundamentals and On Cooking: A Textbooks of Culinary Fundamentals. A 1993 consulting assignment developed into her 4-year tenure as President of American Almond Products Company.
Faith Middleton is a two-time Peabody award-winning interviewer who explores the richness of life daily as host/executive producer of The Faith Middleton Show, in its 32nd year on WNPR and WNPR.org. She also hosts the wildly popular Food Schmooze Party, airing Wednesdays at 3 and 9 p.m. and Saturdays at noon on WNPR. In October, Faith will be inducted into The Connecticut Women’s Hall of Fame along with photographer Annie Liebowitz and NPR war correspondent Ann Garrells. Faith Middleton is the recipient of two Honorary Doctorates, and taught The Art of The Interview at Yale University.
Molly O’Neill is the author of three cookbooks, including the best-selling New York Cookbook, A Well-Seasoned Appetite, and The Pleasure of Your Company. She hosted the PBS series Great Food and was, for ten years, a reporter with The New York Times and the food columnist for its Sunday magazine. O’Neill won the Julia Child/IACP Award for cookbooks and was awarded three James Beard citations for books, journalism, and television, as well as the society’s Lifetime Achievement Award. She has twice been nominated for a Pulitzer Prize and is the editor of the Library of America’s anthology American Food Writing. Molly also teaches food writing courses virtually at Cook ‘n Scribble.
Christopher Prosperi is chef and co-owner of Metro Bis restaurant in Simsbury, Connecticut which is ranked in the top five restaurants in the state for American food according to the Zagat Survey. The New York Times also declared that “Metro Bis is worth a detour.” In 2007, Chef Magazine nominated Chris as one of five national finalists for the Chef of the Year Award.
Ruth Reichl P’11 is Editorial Advisor to Gilt Taste and Editor at Large at Random House. She is also a judge on Top Chef Masters. She has been Editor in Chief of Gourmet Magazine, restaurant critic and food editor of the Los Angeles Times and a restaurant critic for the New York Times. She has authored four memoirs, Tender at the Bone, Comfort Me with Apples, Garlic and Sapphires, and For You, Mom, Finally. She is the editor of The Modern Library Food Series, which currently includes ten books. She is Executive Producer and host of the public television series, Adventures with Ruth. She is also a producer on the Fox 2000 movie, Garlic and Sapphires, to be directed by Paul Feig. At the moment she is at work on a novel and a cookbook.
Ashley Rodriguez is a wife, mother of three, and creator of notwithoutsalt.com. She has worked in pastry at Spago, photographed for bonappetit.com and many fun places in between. She has been nominated for best food photography by Saveur.com and notwithoutsalt.com was voted one of the top 50 food blogs in the world by The Times online. But all her kids care about are the cookies, of which there are plenty.
Donald Siegel is the author of the book From Lokshen to Lo Mein: The Jewish Love Affair with Chinese Food. In addition to being a professor of earth sciences at Syracuse University, he’s also an Adjunct Professor of SUNY's Departments of Civil and Environmental Engineering and Forest Engineering. Before his academic positions, he worked as a hydrologist/geochemist for the U.S. Geological Survey.
Raymond Sokolov was born in 1941 in Detroit. He was the Food Editor of The New York Times from 1971 to 1973. He has been the food columnist for the Natural History Magazine for twenty years , a restaurant critic and Arts Editor for The Wall Street Journal, and an author of several cookbooks, a much-praised novel, Native Intelligence, and a biography of New Yorker critic A. J. Liebling.
Jane Stern has co-authored over forty books, including the good-eats guide Roadfood and cookbooks Square Meals and American Gourmet. She and Michael Stern have won three James Beard journalism awards for their monthly column in Gourmet magazine, which takes readers to the best restaurants in small towns and cities all around the country. She is also a fourth generation tarot reader and have read the tarot for 42 years.
Robert Surles — AKA Chef Bobo — A pioneer in serving healthy and delicious school lunches, Chef Bobo is Executive Chef at the Calhoun School in New York City. His award winning lunch program is focused on debunking the myth that “kids won’t eat”. In his 10 years at Calhoun School he has influenced many schools across the country to take on the challenge of improving what children are being fed at school.
Gaye Tuchman's main areas of interest are the sociologies of culture (including media), gender, and higher education. She is a firm believer in Simmel's dictum that almost anything can be transformed into an interesting sociological problem. Although she thinks of herself as an ethnographer, she has also published work on historical methods. She is the co-author of the academic article “New York Jews and Chinese food: The Social Construction of an Ethnic Pattern" with Harry Gene Levine.
Paolo Villoresi is a food historian, the President of Italian Cooking Forum, Inc. the Publisher and Editor in Chief of Italian Life Style magazine for Body, Mind & Spirit and of La Piazza Italiana- The Italian Square International Portal. He is the Founder and President of the Italian Culinary Institute, Italian Cooking and Living magazine as well as the Founder, Publisher, and editor of La Cucina Italiana, the first Italian magazine.
Katherine Vitucci is the author of the food blog, The Parsley Thief. She lives in South Norwalk, CT where she divides her time between raising her two boys and cooking, developing and photographing recipes for her blog.
Terry Walters is at the forefront of the clean eating lifestyle movement. She is the author of two highly acclaimed cookbooks – the bestselling, CLEAN FOOD, and CLEAN START, a James Beard Foundation Award finalist and recipient of the Nautilus Gold Book Award. Terry is dedicated to making sustainable good health both easy and delicious.
Chichi Wang is an offal cook who writes “The Nasty Bits” column for Serious Eats. Born in Shanghai and raised in New Mexico, Chichi Wang took her degree in philosophy but decided that writing about food would be more fun than writing about Plato. She is currently working on her first book, a food memoir about growing up in her mother’s kitchen.
![[Wesleyan University shield]](http://www.wesleyan.edu/common/_internal/files/shield_44x50_dddddd.png){kind=small}