An (Un)intended Food Migration: Texas, Germany, Northern India, and Back to Ohio... All in One Night

Yesterday, I noted my excitement for tonight's Northern Indian dinner in one of our campus dining halls, under the direction of visiting Sodexo and Executive Chef Sathish Kumar. Well, as we press on with on-going post-pre-orientation programming and gatherings, and continuing to build on this year's "Migrations" theme with a truly inspirational and powerful play which concluded this evening, the stage seemed to have been deemed from the very beginning as set to translate the message of food identity, culture, and migrations this evening. In fact, I felt particularly moved when I heard many times over in the food line today, "Can I have a little bit of everything?" What courage, what bravery, what culinary gastronauts! And what a great day and series of events to celebrate my one-year anniversary with Denison!

Sodexo's International Flavours Make Their Way onto Campus: a Northern Indian Lunch

For some reason or another, it seems that food has recently taken on an evolutionary meaning for the Denison community. From searching for locally sourced ingredients to artistically representing sectors of the food industry and opportunities for food and culture programming (such as my farm to table cooking class in two weeks) as a direct correlation to our campus-wide theme of "Migrations," the interrogation and study of food seems to have been welcomed to Denison's table. This wonderful trend continued this past weekend with the arrival of Executive Chef Sathish Kumar who shared traditional preparation techniques with the cook staff over the weekend and is also on campus to direct the preparation of two authentic Indian meals for the campus community. In addition, Chef Sathish was available to meet students, faculty, and staff at the first of two Indian meals today for lunch, and naturally I had to meet him in person.