Practicing Gastronomy with Karen Solomon
by Whitney Johndro
Always keep trying. Only you and your soul will know the line between
persistence and annoyance, and I say never give up.
Words like these were among the many helpful hints given to the students of the Gastronomy program by well-known food writer Karen Solomon, who produced the cookbooks Jam It, Pickle It, Cure It and Can It, Bottle It, Smoke It. During the Practicing Gastronomy lecture series, Solomon shared the ins and outs of her trade. She was both honest and helpful in sharing the real truth about food writing, and explained the importance of both time and patience that is needed to develop and establish one’s position in the world of food writing. Among the many tips Solomon shared, she emphasized getting an agent as well as taking and being grateful for unpaid positions and the opportunities they may lead to in the future. Additionally, she recommended finding a few people you trust to use as a sounding board for your ideas.
Karen emphasized the importance of networking and community, explaining the idea that we should create the destiny and path we wish to fulfill by knowing as many people as we can 
within the discipline, and by attending and partaking in all events relevant to food. Through her bubbly recollection, she shared with us the nostalgia of her first experience with homemade salad dressing at her husband’s parent’s home twenty years ago that lead to the inspiration of her creating and crafting her own food items. Karen firmly believes in the art of producing one’s own foodstuffs, from complicated to simple recipes that take away from the ruling of big corporations. These creations include items ranging from marshmallows, fruit leathers, and cornflakes to sausages, mayonnaise, and miso.
While she described the trials and tribulations of a freelance writer with a love for food, it was
easy to see that passion and dedication are both equally important for success as a writer in the modern age. Her accomplishments are seen in her two books mentioned above, as well as her many articles in the San Francisco Chronicle and San Francisco Magazine that focus on artisan crafts, trends in the food world, and food politics. Karen Solomon’s talk was very inspirational for all aspiring food artists and writers in and out of the Gastronomy program.
The Cookie Girl – Daily Large-Scale Pastry Production at Boston University
by Sarah Sholes
1,000 bagels every day, 10,000 pieces of pastry for the work holiday party, and 30,000 commencement weekend cookies - just some of the figures Joe Frackleton keeps in mind. ‘Executive Pastry Chef, Boston University’ emboss his crisp, white chef coat as he takes a seat at a booth in the BU student union by the entrance of his industrial kitchen. Ice blue eyes pop from a clean shaven face, framed by a scrupulous haircut. Despite the Spring Break lull this week, Frackleton, 51, totes a late afternoon cup of coffee. Pastry, Frackleton explains, is for perfectionists. “There is a need to be more precise [than cooking]. The recipes have to be exact.”
So went the introduction to a profile I wrote for ML681, Food Writing for Print Media, with Sheryl Julian last spring. I left my interview with the pastry chef in awe of the volume of his responsibilities. Little did I realize this would be the first of many encounters. A few weeks later I was offered a chance to come into Frackleton’s kitchen and work with his team as they prepared for commencement. My job: to help make the cookies.
To meet the capacious demands of feeding a university as substantial as Boston University requires even more planning from the Everett native. His days at BU, late compared to most bakers, average a start at 7:00 AM. Daily items like muffins, bagels, cookies, scones and croissants for the bagel shops and on-campus Starbucks must be ready for distribution. Catering meetings review the week’s upcoming events, including anything from VIP dinners at BU President Robert Brown’s house for Trustee members to wedding receptions, often for alumni. The events calendar is quite full. Fall and spring are Frackleton’s busiest seasons, welcoming new students and hosting parent and alumni weekends, then sending off graduates with a warm farewell. As one of the city of Boston’s largest employers, BU has over 10,000 faculty and staff members in total, all of whom are invited to the annual holiday party Frackleton caters.
Now, over five months later, I still work in the BU bakery. My most recent challenge is 
to assist with the back to school rush. With 4,000 members of the class of 2015 moving onto campus, there has been serious demand for cookies in the first days of September. One batch of cookie dough weighs roughly 100 pounds, and I find myself cranking out cookies by the thousands every day, as we anticipate welcome back events. There are the reliable oatmeal raisin, spicy ginger, triple chocolate, and the always classic chocolate chip. Despite the craze, Frackleton maintains a sense of calm and always keeps his chef coat spotless. I, known only as ‘the cookie girl’ to many Aramark employees passing through the kitchen, continue to learn recipes, techniques and skills from Frackleton, but have yet to master the art of keeping my apron clean.
A great aspect of the Gastronomy program is also sometimes one of the most daunting to me. Unlike MBA students, for example, gastronomes have no distinct path to follow. But not trailing a path means that sometimes you can blaze your own. One interview for a class assignment turned into a job for me. I get to work with a great team of people who offer insight. They allow me to do my favorite thing - make cookies - which I do in abundance.
An Introduction to the New Graduate Assistants
Every semester, the Gastronomy program hires several new graduate assistants to help with various projects and tasks - working on the blog, taking on new research topics, organizing events, and anything else that needs to be taken care of. For this fall, assistants Alex Galimberti and Meg Jones Wall will be filling these roles, so you'll probably be seeing a lot of them in the next few months. If you haven't met these students yet, here's a quick introduction:
Alex Galimberti will be focusing on research aspects of the program, working with Rachel Black on her soon-to-be-published exploration of wine and culture as well as helping with program events, policies and organization tactics. An avid traveler with a particular interest in Latin American food cultures, Alex is hoping to work with gastronomic tourism development after completing the program. "One of my favorite things about researching Latin American cuisines is tasting unique ingredients, and also learning traditional pre-Hispanic recipes," Alex explains. Exploring exotic dishes such as chapulines and huitlacoche (fried crickets and wild fungus), as well as cuy (guinea pig), he's not afraid to try indigenous foods and distinctive cultural dishes that many Americans might shy away from. "My main goal is to keep going to different countries and learning more about their food." After graduating from The Culinary Institute of America, Alex began the Gastronomy program in 2010, taking a few courses at a time while he also works at Taranta Restaurant in the North End. Alex has been featured on this blog before, so for more information check out his student profile.
Meg Jones Wall will be working on communications projects, focusing primarily on the BU
Gastronomy blog as well as helping with new marketing materials for the program. Working to develop her photography and food styling skills, Meg will be completing her thesis this semester, comparing historic and modern food still life paintings to food photographs. "I love looking at food through different lenses, literally and figuratively. The way photographers can use light and color to show viewers new aspects of ingredients and dishes they take for granted has always fascinated me," Meg says. A full-time student in the program, Meg began in the fall of 2010, completing the culinary certificates over the summer. As well as working on the Gastronomy blog, Meg also writes for her own food and recipe blog, ginger-snapped.
Want to get involved? We're always looking for submissions, whether you're interested in writing a profile on a current student or alumni, exploring events or festivals in the community, or reporting on various events throughout the Gastronomy program. Recipes, profiles, and photographs are also welcome, as well as anything else you dream up. Feel free to email us anytime with suggestions, ideas or articles - we'd love to hear from you!
Hands-on Canning Class
Hands-on canning class, Oct. 27
Would you like to enjoy home or locally grown food year round? Join Gastronomy alumna Allison Carroll Duffy as she guides you through the fundamentals of canning. This hands-on class will cover the tools, techniques, and methods of safe home canning and boiling water bath canning. Participants will prepare one recipe for practice. This course is scheduled for Thursday, October 27, 2011 from 6-9 p.m. and will be held at 808 Commonwealth Avenue. The cost for this course is $50. This includes all materials and instruction. To register, please email gastrmla@bu.edu.
Gastronomy Events – September 2011
MONDAY, SEPTEMBER 12
Karen Solomon talks about her book Jam It, Pickle It, Cure It as part of Practicing Gastronomy Series.
SATURDAY, SEPTEMBER 17
Writing Workshop for Gastronomy Students
MONDAY, SEPTEMBER 19
Dr. Warren Belasco, “The Stakes in our Steaks”, Pepin Lecture Series, reception followed by lecture.
FRIDAY, SEPTEMBER 23
“Welcome Back” social for Gastronomy students and faculty.
For more information and to stay up to date check our events page.
Beginners Tricks: Food Styling and Photography
By Meg Jones Wall
As a full-time graduate student, it’s always tempting to spend as much free time as possible slacking off. Classes are tough, research papers are grueling, and for these brief three weeks between the second summer session and the fall semester, Gastronomy students finally get to breathe a sigh of relief and relax, at least until our reading lists show up for fall classes. But one thing that I personally want to spend this short break doing is practicing my writing and photography skills, working on my blog as much as possible and hopefully developing stronger abilities with my camera, both in and out of the kitchen. I know I’m not the only aspiring photographer/writer/stylist/food blogger in the Gastronomy program, but I have gathered a number of solid, incredibly helpful resources that I’d love to share with my fellow Gastronomy students who are pursuing the communication concentration.
As a beginning photographer, I was very intimidated by the fancy equipment, expensive editing software and years of experience that the photographers I’ve met seem to possess. And while nothing can replace a lot of practice, I’ve found a few wonderful (and free) guides that can help get you started with a bit more confidence. There are hundreds of photography blogs and websites out there, but PhotoTuts tutorials offer helpful tips on everything from lighting to ISOs, giving information on all types of photography without too much technical language. The blog on Food Pixels gives more specific advice on food photography, often featuring reader photos, and Learn Food Photography provides articles on equipment and techniques, as well as interviews with successful photographers, stylists, and food writers. And if you’re not checking Lara Ferroni’s blog regularly, you’re missing tons of great insights on photography, styling, and food writing.
In addition to websites and blogs, I’ve collected quite a few books on each of these subjects. While every author offers unique tips and an individual perspective, much of the basic information gets repeated between texts, particularly those on photography and styling. Finding a few authors that you really trust is much more valuable than having stacks of books that you hardly use, and for me, Helene Dujardin’s book Plate to Pixel has been an invaluable resource that I can’t recommend enough. Dujardin is a beautiful writer and a very talented photographer, and her simple explanations and encouragement are extremely helpful. Dianne Jacob’s Will Write for Food is another great resource for food writers, giving information and advice that applies to blogs, newspaper articles, books, reviews, and memoirs. Jacob offers tips on how to break out of a writing rut, how to get published, ways to increase traffic to a blog, and what to look for when writing restaurant reviews. She provides information that’s helpful to both beginning and experienced writers.
Armed with all of these resources, you can feel a lot more confident entering these fields. But the most important advice I’ve been given as I struggled to grow as a writer and photographer is this: practice. Don’t make excuses, don’t apologize for your work, and don’t just sit at home and pray you’ll magically get better. Make time to write, cook, take pictures, style food every day, and you will improve. Get connected with people in the field who will push you and look at your work, offering their opinions on what looks good and what needs improving. And don’t worry about your equipment, software, ingredients or notebooks--good photographers can take a beautiful photo with a cell phone, and a great writer doesn’t need more than a piece of paper and a pencil. Enjoy your time away from classes, but don’t forget to keep on doing what you love.
A Seedling Project: The Gastronomy Gardening Club
By Mayling Chung
During the past two Sundays, the Gastronomy Gardening Club worked on its new plot in the Fenway Victory Gardens. For the first work day, we cleared along the fence line as an important first step in planning the garden. We wrestled with invasive plants, discovered some items and plants we'd like to reuse, and couldn't help but chat about our sensory experiences as we worked. Wafts of thyme floated into our nostrils, then mint; sunny yellow black-eyed susans swayed together; thorny branches kept us aware of our movements; the low hum of both honey and bumble bees; and the feel of soft soil releasing the roots of the plants. Ah, gastronomes in the garden!
The Gastronomy Gardening Club was recently created for Gastronomy students and affiliates with interests in gardening and related activities. It is intended for any and all levels of gardening experience and we want to learn from one another while getting our hands on some plants and in the dirt. Dr. Rachel Black planted the idea at the end of end of the Urban Agriculture course, and since then a small group of students have been working to organize a variety of opportunities for growing food and interacting with garden communities.
There was a lot of progress made and there is more work to be done. Our hope is to create a welcoming place for gathering, growth, connection, and inspiration. The Fenway Victory Gardens has been a wonderful source of support and partner with a shared passion for education and collaboration. We are really excited to continue to interact with and be a part of their garden community and we hope to make more great connections through the gardening club.
Please stay tuned and we would love to hear from you! One of our plans is to transition the Urban Agriculture course blog into a platform for the club so we’ll be looking for gardening-related write-ups. Send any ideas for educational opportunities, volunteering, and ways to give back to the FVG community to maylingc@bu.edu or Erin Ross at rosserink@gmail.com.
Alumna Profile: Joyce Lock
Gastronomy Alumna, Joyce Lock, never played a trivia game she could win but longed for a day when she could demonstrate her true trivia talent; not through history or pop culture but through a topic she was passionate about--if only there was a game about food and wine! This wish became a reality during Lock’s last year of study in Boston University’s Gastronomy Program. For her master’s thesis, Lock invented a food-related trivia game and went on to turn her brainchild into an impressive list of bestselling trivia games!
In 2002, Lock earned her Master of Liberal Arts in Gastronomy at Boston University where she also received certificates in wine and spirits and the culinary arts. Following graduation, Lock has been very busy with her career. She is the owner of Stir, a company that in between game projects provides culinary consulting, recipe development, and food writing services.
She serves on the board of Practical Farmers of Iowa, and has enjoyed being a judge for the James Beard Foundation Awards and Cochon 555, a heritage breed pig culinary competition. Lock’s entrepreneurial endeavors do not end here, as she is best known as the inventor of Foodie Fight: A Trivia Game for Serious Food Lovers (2007), Wine Wars: A Trivia Game for Wine Geeks and Wannabes (2009) and Foodie Fight Rematch (2011).
Lock’s eclectic interests span from how to make the best pie crust to U.S. agriculture policy. This eclecticism is reflected in her trivia games. Each topic is well researched and strives to engage the culinary novice and challenge the boastful foodie. Trivia questions are plucked from a battery of topics such as: kitchen skills, growing and preserving food, farmers markets, and food production and designed to outrun even the fastest running food trends.
Lock’s motivation is clear: “In all my games I strive to challenge the experts and engage reluctant players with fun, useful, surprising, and thought-provoking content—not merely random trivia. Game fans tell me they don’t mind losing a round because they have fun and appreciate that they’re learning new things.”
Lock’s approach to food is thoughtful and engaging. Lock’s work demonstrates that she has her finger on the pulse of the food world: “I think of food as the ultimate ‘social media.’ It connects us to friends, family, and strangers; to our histories, cultures, and the environment. Food is a social expression of who we are in relation to our world. Maybe this is why today’s appetite for all things food—including food games—seems insatiable. I hope Foodie Fight Rematch contributes to the conversation in a fun way!”
Joyce Lock is certainly a woman to watch as her initiatives continue to forge unique pathways to all things Gastronomy.
To find more information or to purchase Foodie Fight Games visit: http://www.foodiefightgames.com
A Gastronomy Manifesto
by Taylor Cocalis of Good Food Jobs
Identifying the field of gastronomy as your chosen career path is both a blessing and a curse. The blessing is in the wide open opportunity and the option to be creative in the path that you take. The curse is that there is no set path. The road ahead, yet unpaved (or uncleared, shall we say? We don't want to encourage putting any more concrete on the earth.), will take exhausting amounts of time, energy, enthusiasm, expertise, and a healthy dose of faith in ourselves and each other.
There is no guarantee that what we are doing will indeed make a difference, but we all feel that there is merit in pursuing it. The prospect of failure is far less painful than the regret we'd feel if we never tried.
So we ask you all to step out of your comfort zone - choose the path less traveled, find satisfaction in the small strides that you make - they may be smaller steps, but they are meaningful ones.
And while this path does not yet promise fame or fortune at the outset, it will provide community, rebuild culture, and provide a sense of wealth and security that money can't buy. When you are feeling like the world is against you, casting a judgemental eye on how you've chosen to devote your time, energy, and precious educational funds, come find us. We'll have a seat ready for you at our table, welcoming you to celebrate your interest in all things living, and inspiring ideas as to how we can continue to be the change we want to see in the world.
We know from experience that the first step is the hardest, and we're here to help you. We urge you to do this: tackle one small issue . . . one seemingly insignificant contribution to the world. It can be selling expensive (but worth it) artisan cheese to those that can afford it, introducing the idea of growing food to those who will listen, or providing accounting expertise to agricultural start-ups. You can teach someone to take an extra ten seconds to taste every day, bake fresh bread for your buddies, or pick-your-own fruit for the first time. You can teach, you can eat, you can support, or you can savor. You can approach food from the politics, the pleasure, the production, the economics, the ecology, the psychology, the sociology, the culture, or the agriculture. It can be a career, a job, volunteering, or acting as an engaged citizen. But please don't be afraid to do something . . . anything . . . to start taking steps in the right direction.
In isolation, none of these individual acts will save the world, but together they have the power to slowly and steadily rebuild our food culture and change the world for the better.
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Taylor Cocalis co-founded Good Food Jobs in 2010, but her path to food enlightenment started long before that. At Cornell University she studied Hospitality Management and upon graduation in 2005 she completed a Masters in Food Culture at the University of Gastronomic Sciences in Parma, Italy.
After three years of running the education department at Murray's Cheese in New York City, Taylor teamed up with a fellow Cornell alum Dorothy Neagle to create Good Food Jobs, a gastronomy focused job search website designed to link people looking for meaningful food work with the business that need their energy, enthusiasm, and intellect.
This blog post also appeared in the most recent Good Food Jobs newsletter.
Grow with Gastronomy
Boston University's Gastronomy Program cultivates change as it branches out to look at food production in cities. The launch of the Urban Agriculture course this summer was an important step in developing a holistic approach to studying food systems. Read more about it in BU Today: "One Class, OnDay: Urban Agriculture Takes Root"
