Columbia College Spring 2015 TODAY Food, Glorious Food Contents FOOD, GLORIOUS FOOD 20 Students Bond Around 24 Overheard in Ferris Food Booth Commons Clubs, communities and other initiatives An illustration of the undergraduate eating based around food offer students a chance experience. to connect. BY KARL DAUM ’15 BY NATHALIE ALONSO ’08 26 Epicures and 37 So Where Do You Want Entrepreneurs to Eat? Alumni follow their passions and build Alumni of all ages recall their favorite careers in all aspects of the food industry. dining choices in Morningside Heights. BY ALEX SACHARE ’71 14 48 54 MESSAGE FROM DEAN JAMES J. VALENTINI Food Makes for Good Chemistry hirty-two years ago, upon my very first visit to Columbia, my hosts in the chemistry depart- ment took me for dinner to Fencing wins titles Pippa Murray ’96 Darryl Pinckney ’88 Moon Palace, on Broadway between West 111th and 112th TStreets. The Shanghai-style Chinese restaurant, located next to Bank Street Bookstore, was a DEPARTMENTS favorite in the neighborhood for students and WEB EXTRAS faculty — especially chemistry faculty, who 3 Message from Dean James J. Valentini took speakers there every Thursday after the Food makes for good chemistry. Kailee Pedersen ’17 department seminar. The restaurant closed reads her award- eight years later, in 1991, only days before I 4 Letters to the Editor winning poetry returned to campus as a professor. It had been a Morningside Heights institution for 26 years. 5 Within the Family by Editor Alex Sachare ’71 Recipes from In the years since, new eateries in the neigh- Creating a food-themed issue of CCT. Dina Cheney ’99 borhood have come — and some have come and gone. And everyone I know seems to have College Dean James J. Valentini and Associate Dean of Residential Life (now Dean of 6 Around the Quads Dean’s Scholarship one that they would regularly choose. One of Undergraduate Student Life) Cristen Scully Kromm, at head of table, enjoyed a lunch Dean’s Scholarship Reception brings together donors and recipients. Reception photos my chemistry graduate students, living on a with students last semester at John Jay Dining Hall. tight budget and wanting to get back into the PHOTO: ELENA HECHT BC’09 14 Roar, Lion, Roar John Jay Awards lab quickly, would go to Koronet Pizza for its Men’s and women’s fencing win Ivy League titles. Dinner photos $2 giant slices, remarking that it would be perfect if only the creative passion. For many Columbians, a restaurant is a place joint also offered salads. A longtime friend from out of town we go with friends to replenish our bodies and cheer our spirits; 41 Columbia Forum: Why Not Say What Happened: college.columbia. always asked to go to Symposium when he visited. And a few for others a restaurant is a business, a labor of love, a life, a way A Sentimental Education edu/cct months ago, when I arranged a breakfast meeting with an alum- to propel an entrepreneurial spirit. Anita Lo ’88 is one of them. Memories from the author’s last two years at the College. nus who lives on the East Side, he wanted nothing other than to Last September I had the pleasure of dining with two of her BY MORRIS DICKSTEIN ’61 come across town to eat at Tom’s Restaurant, at which he had Columbia College classmates at Lo’s award-winning restaurant, been a regular in his student days, but had not entered in three Annisa, in the West Village, and had the even greater pleasure decades. of being introduced to her. Though this was our first meeting, I ALUMNI NEWS When I became dean in 2011, Bwog, a student news blog, had seen her before, and you may have, too, on Top Chef Masters. offered a free Milano Market sandwich to the student who came As you’ll learn in this issue, food connects current students 47 Message from CCAA President Douglas R. Wolf ’88 up with the best nickname for me — “best” to be determined — whether through student organizations, special interest by open-ballot voting on Bwog.com. I upped the prize by offer- residential communities or in the dining halls. In recent years, A new logo for the CCAA. ing to buy the sandwich myself, inviting the winner to enjoy it Columbia Dining has started hosting special community events, with me in my office and offering a photo-op with a name plate for Thanksgiving, Valentine’s Day, Mardi Gras, Black History 48 People Like Columbia College engraved with the winning selection. When Ivan Duschatzky Month, Cinco de Mayo and other occasions. And while our Pippa Murray ’96; Richard Ravitch ’55; Andrew Carroll ’93 Alumni on Facebook: SEAS’13, creator of the now-familiar nickname “Deantini,” first-years (who have meal plans) typically connect for meals in facebook.com/alumnicc joined me for lunch, he ordered one of his favorites, chicken John Jay, JJ’s Place or Ferris Booth Commons, many upperclass- 52 Alumni in the News parmigiana. I don’t remember what I had; I just remember be- men prefer to eat at Café East in Alfred Lerner Hall, Blue Java ing glad that the winning name turned out to be one I wouldn’t in Butler Library, Brad’s in the Journalism School, Brownie’s in 53 Bookshelf regret embracing. the basement of Avery Hall, Joe Coffee in the Northwest Corner Follow @Columbia_CCAA Featured: Blackballed: The Black Vote and US Democracy This year, I’ve been making more time to eat with students in Building or elsewhere in the neighborhood. on Twitter by Darryl Pinckney ’88 the dining halls and to have Sunday dinners with them in resi- I hope dining has afforded you many opportunities to stay dence halls. And there’s always something new to try. Recently, connected to your fellow alumni, whether from the Class of 55 Class Notes I had my first grilled cheese from JJ’s Place, in the basement of 1932 or the Class of 2014. And I look forward to connecting with Join the Columbia Alumni John Jay. Pretty good, as I told the chef. I’m looking forward to each of you through breakfasts, lunches and dinners on my trips 92 Obituaries Association Network going back soon. across the United States and around the world, to learn where on LinkedIn: alumni. Food is essential for our biological lives, but dining together you have traveled since graduation from that wonderful place 96 Alumni Corner columbia.edu/linkedin is fundamental to our social lives. That was implicit in my in- that I hope has continued to nourish you, Columbia College. Bruce Black ’76 on why he loves Columbia football. vitation to Ivan. And, while we can analyze food in the simple Roar, Lion(s), Roar, chemistry terms of energy content and composition of protein, carbohydrates and fat, preparing food is an art, and for some a SPRING 2015 3 Letters to the Editor WITHIN THE FAMILY BY EDITOR ALEX SACHARE ’71 The One Eric Eisner ’70 Volume 42 Number 3 When I started reading Jamie Katz ’72, Creating a Food-Themed CCT Spring 2015 BUS’80’s article about Eric Eisner ’70 in EDITOR IN CHIEF the Winter 2014–15 issue, I thought that Alex Sachare ’71 maybe there was another Eric Eisner in our class. I could not imagine the Eric Eis- hoosing a theme, any theme, for a magazine can food trucks to the creator of a subscription service that delivers EXECUTIVE EDITOR ner I knew 44 years ago becoming a “top- be a tricky proposition. A theme allows us to gourmet delights from around the world directly to your door- Lisa Palladino tier Hollywood lawyer and dealmaker.” delve more deeply into a subject of interest, to step. None of the nine are household names yet, but they follow approach it from several angles and to present it in the footsteps of some well-known Columbia foodies such as MANAGING EDITOR But the article was indeed about my old Alexis Tonti SOA’11 friend, whom I remember as being shy, in a more comprehensive way. But if we are go- restaurateur Anita Lo ’88 and America’s Test Kitchen founder and idealistic and one of the nicest people I ing to devote a series of articles to one subject, we host Christopher Kimball ’73. One thing they have in common EDITORIAL ASSISTANT have ever known. I am delighted to learn Cneed to be confident that subject will be of interest to many if not is that they all pursued their dreams and did not play it safe, Anne-Ryan Heatwole JRN’09 that he seems to have had a happy life and most of our readers or we’ll lose them after they’ve read Class instead finding a way to be involved in a field they were passion- Notes. That’s why many alumni magazines ate about. As recipe developer and cookbook FORUM EDITOR that he is helping young people from poor Rose Kernochan BC’82 neighborhoods attend good schools and don’t publish themed issues at all or only do author Dina Cheney ’99 says, “It still amazes colleges. them sparingly, preferring diverse content on me that I’ve accomplished this dream that I had CONTRIBUTING WRITER Henry Munson ’70 the hope that everyone will find something to when I was 14. I feel so lucky to be doing this.” Shira Boss ’93, JRN’97, SIPA’98 WINTHROP, MASS. In one of them, an art instructor is at the like. Read about these alumni starting on page 26.