Welcome new students for fall 2022, part 2
We are welcoming a bumper crop of new Gastronomy and Food Studies students for the fall semester. Enjoy getting to know a few of them here.
Tracey Torres (she/her) grew up with a great appreciation for food. She was born and raised in the south suburbs of Chicago. As a child of Filipino immigrants, she was lucky to grow up eating home-cooked dishes almost every night. As years went on, a new dish would be added to the table like pasta with fresh tomatoes and basil after a neighbor brought it to a family party. The basil then would find itself in a Thai-inspired stir fry because her mom wanted to replicate their favorite takeout place. Tracey would continue to learn about food through dinner time with her family and by watching numerous episodes of Two Fat Lady’s, Yan Can Cook and of course, Jacques & Julia: Cooking at Home on PBS. Her interest in food followed her to the University of Iowa. However, she found herself spending more time in the public library reading cookbooks instead of attending class. She then transferred to Kendall College and graduated with a B.A. in Culinary Arts. During her undergrad, Tracey worked in many areas of the food world. She spent summers working at the farmers’ market, catered some wild gigs, and flipped burgers on the lake at a yacht club. However, the path she would take after graduation was cooking in Michelin-starred restaurants in Chicago and New York City.
After spending 12 years in professional kitchens, Tracey decided to pivot to the corporate world after having her son. Restaurant life with a young child was as hard as it may seem. She is currently working as a Culinary Specialist at a large CPG company, enjoying the product innovation process while also sneaking in some recipe development. She is so excited to join the BU Gastronomy community and continue learning and growing in the Culinary world.
Alison Barricklow ’s primary love language has always been food. She learned to love cooking, baking, and the joy of sharing a meal with others when she was a child, and her passion ultimately led her to a career in the hospitality industry. She began working in restaurant kitchens when she was a teenager, and moved on to roles in catering, meeting and event management, and food and wine travel as her career progressed. Her most recent position was as a Tour and Travel Director for an international wine distributor where she planned and managed small group food and wine tours in Europe.
Alison attended Wheaton College in Norton, MA in the mid 80’s, but had to leave before graduating. She was finally able to take a career break in 2019 to complete her degree and graduated Southern New Hampshire University in March 2020, just as the pandemic lockdown began. Unfortunately, she has been unable to move forward in her career since then, which is why she decided on the Gastronomy program. She has ideas for a culinary travel business but wants to stay open for now to see where this experience could potentially lead her.
When Alison and her husband became empty nesters, they relocated to Los Angeles from New Hampshire, so she is participating as an online student. She loves the California weather most of the year, but misses fall in New England, especially when it comes to apple picking, fresh apple cider, and hot apple cider donuts! She hopes to attend class in person one fall term so she can satisfy her food cravings.
In her free time, Alison loves to travel, explore food markets, go wine tasting, take food tours, visit museums, hike, read, take way too many photos, and spend time with her husband and children.
Isabella Pedroli Giordano was born and raised in Los Angeles, California and spent fifteen years cooking professionally. A self-proclaimed Italophile, she honed her craft in Italian kitchens in California, the Republic of San Marino, and Italy. She apprenticed in San Marino, Le Marche and Emilia-Romagna during various points of her career. A perpetual student, she returned to community college in 2017, eventually transferring to the University of California, Davis. There, she majored in Spanish and minored in Italian. Ultimately, her goal is to bridge her culinary knowledge with literature and language, to comprehend the nuances of the origin and history of food. In understanding how and why food or a dish are part of a specific culture, Isabella hopes to better communicate and tell stories about a given culture. She also believes that good food should be accessible to all, regardless of their socioeconomic background. Through the pursuit of formal education, Isabella would like to reach a broader audience in her future career. She envisions teaching at the community college level or in a community-based setting, working towards making wholesome and home-cooked food accessible and manageable for underserved communities. She would like to use her knowledge of Spanish to reach Spanish-speaking communities and people of color.
Isabella currently resides in Urbana, Illinois with her partner, Brian, who is a graduate student at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.
Isabel Marie Barbosa, whose pronouns are she/they, has always recognized food as a connective component of the human experience. Growing up in Southern California, they regularly threw elaborate dinner parties, cooking for and with friends, and were known to show up to school with sweets to share. Over the years, they have observed the way food, and our relation to it, has been a tool to connect with, or distance ourselves from, community.
Isabel’s career path has taken them through the theatrical, philosophical, and archaeological fields, each of which has informed their approach to gastronomy. Not only have they developed a curiosity about the role of food in the arts and recognized its ability to connect us with other cultures, both past and present; they have also come to view food as the lens through which philosophy can be grounded in the human experience.
The intersection of their lived experience and academic interest has led Isabel to pursue a Masters in Gastronomy at Boston University, where they hope to explore the juncture of food, philosophy, and queerness. They are also compelled by food as art, both historical and contemporary; something they hope to study by pairing academic examination and practical application.
Isabel is currently living in Brooklyn, where they are cultivating their culinary curiosity both inside and outside of the kitchen. They spend their time exploring the many facets of the New York food scene, frequenting food festivals, popups, museum exhibitions, and community events.