I have been interested in food, cooking and food history since I was a teenager helping my mother in the kitchen. After college and a failed stint in graduate school (clinical psychology), I switched to more immediate gratification and stared cooking in restaurants. I worked my way up, and spent seventeen years in restaurant kitchens, twelve as executive chef. After leaving restaurant kitchens, I revived my interest in culinary history by returning to graduate school in 2000 (NYU), where I earned an MA in Food Studies, while also working as a chef instructor in culinary school. I began my writing career with an article on the history of the grilled cheese sandwich. I still teach and write about food history. Rice: a global history is my first book.
