More New Students for Spring 2018!
Sarah Critchely
I’m from a small town on the Connecticut shoreline where I fostered a love for fried seafood and New Haven style apizza. At first, I started my adult life on a very literary path. After studying English at Skidmore College, I went to Brown University to get my MAT degree in Secondary English Education. I finished my first year of teaching and then decided to completely change directions. Figuring that my early twenties were as good a time as any to explore my options, I attended the Cambridge School of Culinary Arts to study pastry. I did a stint at a bakery before moving into the restaurant world, working as a savory cook at the now-defunct TW Food and then as a pastry cook at Harvest Restaurant. I have been working as a confectioner/chocolatier at Spindler Confections in Somerville for the past year where I love learning more about all the intricacies of sugar and cocoa crystals. My favorite thing to cook (and eat) is soup and my favorite baking activity is making layered cakes. I love traveling, the beach during the off-season, Talking Heads, and knitting. Currently, I live in Cambridge with my husband, my cat, and too many cookbooks.
I’m looking forward to continue to make food the central part of my career while stepping out of the professional kitchen world a bit. I have been eyeing the Gastronomy program at BU for years and am so excited to finally be a part of the program! I’m hoping to learn more about food history and food policy and to forge a path onwards from there.
Caitlyn Wright
I am passionate about the role food has in our communities and more specifically how we feed our communities. Through travel and research I have been able to spend time in several communities where food production is a conscious part of identity. I obtained my undergraduate degrees in Sociology and Studio Art at Hartwick College in the Catskills of New York. Living and doing field work in an agricultural community that was also experiencing deep poverty and serious public health challenges led me to focus my energy on exploring the intersection of food policy, food access, and sustainability in rural agriculture. I interned with the Center for Agricultural Development and Entrepreneurship and collected data to support their grant programs for sustainable hops production. I was a 2015 Farm and Fire Fellow at Watershed Center for the Ceramic Arts in mid-coast Maine where I split my time between making ceramic work and working on Dandelion Springs an organic farm. I ended this fellowship with an understanding of what it means to produce organic food sustainably to feed a local community but also left with questions about how to supply food affordably to a population in a setting without access to large amounts of land.
From here I participated in a class focused on food culture and challenges to food access in central New York, The Harvest Dinner Project. I was an artist and student creating dinnerware in collaboration with a farm to table restaurant which culminated in a benefit dinner supporting a local soup kitchen. Most recently, I was a teaching Fellow at a residency center for agriculture, culinary arts, and fine art in upstate New York, Craigardan. Here I witnessed and collaborated in projects highlighting the pivotal place we are in surrounding agricultural policy and food culture. I am passionate about creating physical spaces that connect people to food and want to understand the framework for building a non-profit that supports food, nutrition, and culture, especially in marginalized populations.