“We’ll be celebrating with one of [my wife]  Bridget’s delicious soda breads, so looking forward to that,” said Patrick Reynolds, FCLC ‘81.

“And we’ll have our family together, which we’re very blessed to have, even during this time of COVID-19,” chimed in Bridget Reynolds, PAR ‘14, ‘17.

The tradition of making soda bread is an especially comforting one for the Reynolds family. Bridget remembered it being one of the first treats her mother used to make, and the smell of baking bread brings back wonderful memories for her. Now, she makes it with her own family, which includes her husband and children Aileen, FCRH ’14, and Brian, FCRH ‘17.

“Soda bread is a simple recipe that makes plenty to share and brings comfort to those who eat it. That’s how my interactions with my Irish family have always been: simple, warm, and comforting,” said Aileen. “Making soda bread was something my grandmothers did for their children, my parents did for me and my brother, and now it’s something I can take on myself. It’s about family, which is what has always been central and most important to my Irish heritage.”

Something else important to the Reynolds family? A sense of humor. 

“I appreciate the Irish sense of humor, especially in the challenging times of life. We do have a wicked sense of humor that helps us get through,” Bridget said. “Our sense of family, our sense of faith, and our dedication to each other makes me proud.”

Watch Aileen attempt the recipe for the first time on her own below.

@fordhamuniversityFordham grad Aileen Reynolds makes an Irish favorite, soda bread, for St. Patrick’s Day. ##foodtiktok ##fordham ##stpatricksday♬ Irish music by fiddle and whistle(192108) – Hazime

Ingredients:
5 cups flour
1 cup sugar
1 tablespoon baking powder
1.5 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon baking soda
1 stick room temperature butter
3 cups raisins
3 tablespoons caraway seeds
2.5 cups buttermilk
1 large egg

Bake at 350° for about an hour and 15 minutes or until an inserted toothpick comes out clean.

Anne Fernald’s “Whatever” Soup

Anne Fernald, Ph.D., professor of English and women’s, gender, and sexuality studies, has maintained her Sunday night efforts to cook for the work week. “I realized that if I did not do it, I would revert to my natural diet, which is bread and cheese with some butter,” she says. “I do nothing but teach and cook these days and, in a welcome development, my husband has been cooking a tiny bit, too.” Her favorite recipe hails from The New York Times’ Samin Nosrat. It’s called Whatever You Want Soup, and it “serves as a canvas for any kind of chunky soup,” Nosrat writes. Here is Fernald’s take on it.

Ingredients
4 tablespoons butter, olive oil, or neutral-tasting oil
2 medium onions, diced
3 cloves garlic, sliced
Kosher salt
6 to 8 cups meat, vegetables, or other add-ins
Ground turkey
Shredded cabbage
Carrots, cut into rounds
Tomato, chopped
Green onion, sliced
1 1⁄2pounds raw, boneless chicken (optional)
8 cups water or chicken stock, preferably homemade

Steps
1. Set a large Dutch oven or stockpot over medium-high heat and add 4 tablespoons butter or oil. When the butter melts or the oil shimmers, add onions and garlic, and a generous pinch of salt.
2. Reduce the heat to medium and cook, stirring occasionally, until the onions are tender, about 15 minutes.
3. Place the meat, vegetables, and other add-ins in the pot, along with the raw chicken (if using), and add enough liquid to cover. Season with salt. Increase heat to high and bring to a boil, then reduce to a simmer.
4. Cook until the flavors have come together and the vegetables and greens are tender, about 20 minutes more. If you added raw chicken, remove it from the soup when cooked, allow to cool, shred, and return to the soup. Taste and adjust for salt.
5. Add more hot liquid if needed to thin the soup to desired consistency. Taste and adjust for salt.
6. Serve hot, and garnish as desired.

Yield: 6 to 8 servings l Time: About 45 minutes
Base recipe courtesy of Samin Nosrat/The New York Times

The Raffetto Family’s Pink Rice

Raffetto’s has been selling made-in-house pasta and other Italian specialties on New York City’s Houston Street since 1906, spanning four generations of the family. The two most recent generations include brothers Richard, FCRH ’82, and Andrew, FCRH ’84, and Andrew’s daughter Sarah, PCS ’13. Romana Raffetto, Richard and Andrew’s mother, made this dish many times over the years. The Raffettos still make it regularly, Sarah says, because it is so delicious, comforting, and easy. “We use the Reggiano crumbs because, like Nonna taught us, we try not to waste anything, and while cutting wheels of cheese for retail we save the broken crumbs for future recipes.”

Ingredients
1 cup Arborio rice
1 ice cream scoop of salt (a common measurement in our kitchen)
4 tablespoons (1⁄2 stick) butter
4 tablespoons Raffetto’s tomato and basil sauce (or a similar sauce of your choice)
Parmigiano-Reggiano crumbs to taste

Steps
1. Bring a pot of salted water to boil. Add rice, cover, and cook for 20 minutes.
2. While the rice is cooking, you can get the butter ready by melting it in a bowl. Otherwise, make sure that the butter is out long enough to soften so it will melt easily when the rice is done cooking.
3. When the rice is cooked, strain with a fine mesh strainer and add to the bowl with butter. Stir in Raffetto’s tomato and basil sauce (or any red sauce) in tablespoon increments, adding more or less as desired.
4. Stir in Parmigiano and eat immediately while everything is warm and the cheese melts, resulting in a beautiful light pink color with chunks of tomatoes.

Note: “Nonna Romana hardly ever measured anything,” Sarah says. “She was a casual cook who
knew by eye more than numbers. Modify slightly to your needs and enjoy!”

Yield: 4 to 6 servings l Time: About 20 minutes

Taylor Ha’s Whipped Coffee

Fordham graduate student and Fordham News staff writer Taylor Ha recently recorded herself making a drink that’s gone viral amid the pandemic. Whipped coffee, a four- ingredient beverage that originated in South Korea, was recently featured on TikTok’s trending page, with more than 312,000 videos using the hashtag #whippedcoffee, according to ABC News. In their home kitchen, Ha and her mother created their own version of the popular drink, complete with a slow-motion video of the production process. They also made spaghetti aglio e olio. “Both were delicious and super satisfying to make,” Ha says. “I’ll admit I didn’t actually cook, since I was filming everything, but it was nice to bond with my mom at home.”

Ingredients
2 tablespoons sugar
2 tablespoons instant ground coffee
2 tablespoons freshly boiled water
1 cup almond milk or any other milk (enough to fill a glass 3⁄4 of the way up)

Steps
1. Combine the sugar, instant coffee, and boiled water in a small bowl, whisking the mixture until it becomes silky smooth and turns a light shade of brown. Set aside.
2. Place a few ice cubes in a glass cup and fill the cup three-quarters full with almond milk.
3. Add a few dollops of whipped coffee on top and gently stir the whole thing.

Daejah Woolery’s Jamaican Dumplings with Jerk Chicken and Butternut Squash

When Fordham College at Lincoln Center sophomore Daejah Woolery moved off campus, she started cooking more. She says she doesn’t always have the time to make elaborate dishes, but as a Jamaican, “food is super important to the culture,” so she makes an extra effort to cook from scratch. “I’m excited to make this for my family and show them my slight twist on Jamaican boiled dumplings with chicken!”

Ingredients
Boiled dumplings
2 cups flour
5 teaspoons salt
1⁄4 cup cornmeal
1⁄2 cup cold water
Jerk seasoning (Note: bottled jerk seasoning can be substituted.)
1 tablespoon garlic powder
2 to 3 teaspoons cayenne pepper
2 teaspoons onion powder
2 teaspoons salt
1 teaspoon paprika
1 teaspoon ground allspice
1⁄2 teaspoon black pepper
1⁄2 teaspoon dried crushed red pepper
1⁄2 teaspoon ground nutmeg
1⁄4 teaspoon cinnamon
Butternut squash, as much as you like, cut into cubes
Chicken, any cut, as much as you like, cut into cubes
(Note: I typically use 2 boneless chicken breasts and 12 oz. frozen, pureed butternut squash.)

Steps
1. Bring a large pot of water to a boil.
2. Combine flour, salt, cornmeal, and cold water. Adjust until you have a dough that doesn’t stick to your hands.
3. Make small disc-like shapes and drop them into the boiling water for about 10 minutes. Try not to overcrowd your pot! Remove from heat and set aside. Or they can remain in the water with the heat off.
4. Combine all jerk seasoning ingredients and set aside.
5. Bring another large pot of water to a boil and add squash cubes.
6. When squash is softened, after about 15-20 minutes, puree or mash it finely.
7. Heat pureed squash in a saucepan on medium-low heat and add some of your jerk seasoning to taste. Switch to low heat after you see bubbles. Add about 1⁄4 cup of water if you want a thinner sauce.
8. Season the chicken with jerk seasoning and cook it however you like; throw it in the air fryer if you’re in a rush or sauté it like I usually do.
9. Once the chicken is cooked, add it to the saucepan with the squash and resist the urge to eat it immediately. Let it simmer together on medium-low heat for 5 minutes. Make sure the chicken gets surrounded by the sauce. The sweet and nutty taste of the squash will interact really well with the jerk seasoning.
10. Transfer the dumplings to a plate and put some chicken and squash directly on top!

Yield: 4 servings l Time: About 60 minutes

Clint Ramos’ Filipino Chicken Adobo

Clint Ramos, head of design and production in the Fordham Theatre program, has won several awards, including a Tony and an Obie, for his set and costume designs. He posted a photo of his chicken adobo on Instagram that prompted inquiries about the recipe. With roots in the activist street theater scene in Manila, he advises that one eat the dish while pondering “how much of what you enjoyed was indigenous or a result of Spanish colonialism.”

Ingredients
2 pounds boneless chicken thighs (I like skin but you can also do skinless)
4 dried bay leaves
8 tablespoons dark soy sauce (I use Kikkoman)
8 tablespoons coconut vinegar (apple cider vinegar will also do well)
8 cloves garlic, peeled and crushed
11⁄2 cups water
3 tablespoons cooking (canola or any high heat) oil
1⁄4 teaspoon salt (optional—the salinity from the soy may be enough)
1 teaspoon whole peppercorns
1 teaspoon brown sugar

Steps
1. Marinate chicken in soy sauce, vinegar, and garlic for at least 3 hours or overnight in the fridge.
2. Separate chicken from marinade, removing as much of the liquid as possible. Save all of the marinade (this will be your braising liquid).
3. Heat oil in a pan on medium-high heat and brown chicken on both sides (about 2 minutes per side).
4. In the same pan, pour in the marinade (garlic and all) and water. Bring to a boil.
5. Add bay leaves and peppercorns and reduce heat to low to simmer.
6. Simmer for 30 minutes or until chicken is tender. I completely cover it for 15 minutes and let some of the steam out for the remaining 15 with a wooden spoon lodged between lid and pot. Important: Watch that the liquid reduces to a slightly thickened sauce but not completely.
7. Add sugar and cook for another 5 to 10 minutes.
8. Serve over hot white or brown rice and enjoy!

Yield: 6 to 8 servings l Time: About 60 minutes

Loren Avellino’s Banana Lace Cookies

As a first-generation Italian-American woman, Loren Avellino, FCLC ’07, says she practically grew up in the kitchen. In fact, when she got the opportunity to live in McMahon Hall for the summer as an orientation coordinator at the Lincoln Center campus, she hosted pasta nights for fellow summer residents. Today, she has a degree in culinary arts, a catering company, and a food blog. She recently started a video cooking series on her Instagram page, @lo_go_cook. “When I’m in the kitchen, my anxiety seems to melt away, and if I can take others on that journey with me, especially during these uncertain times, then I’ve done a tiny part to help during this crisis,” Avellino says.

Ingredients
1⁄2 cup (1 stick) unsalted butter, softened
1 cup white sugar
1 teaspoon white or apple cider vinegar
1 cup mashed brown bananas (about 2 large bananas)
1 teaspoon baking soda
1 cup all-purpose flour
1 cup almond flour*
1 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1 cup dark chocolate chips
*Almond flour is important for crispy, lacy cookies (see tip on next page about using only all-purpose flour)

Steps
1. Preheat the oven to 350°F. Beat together the butter and sugar until fluffy.
2. Add the vinegar and vanilla and continue to beat until incorporated. The vinegar helps to offset the sweetness of the ripe bananas.
3. Add the baking soda in with the mashed bananas, then mix into the butter mixture.
4. Whisk together the all-purpose flour, almond flour, and salt. Add to the batter and mix until just combined.
5. Fold the dark chocolate chips into the batter.
6. Drop tablespoon-size amounts of batter onto parchment or silicone-lined baking sheet, making sure they are about 2 inches apart. You should have 42 to 48 cookies.
7. Bake 12 to 14 minutes until the edges are dark brown. (The dark color is important for crispy cookies). Let the cookies cool on the cookie sheet for at least 10 minutes before moving to a wire rack to complete cooling.

Tip: You could use only all-purpose flour, but the cookies will be denser and less crispy than the almond flour version.

Yield: 42 to 48 cookies l Time: About 45 minutes

B.A. Van Sise’s Ricotta Gnocchi with Roasted Pepper Sauce

Photojournalist B.A. Van Sise, FCLC ’05, jokes that his mother preferred food “so heavy that a black hole would not easily escape its pull.” For her homemade gnocchi, she’d replace the potato with rich, creamy ricotta and make the supple dough herself, rolling it and cutting it by hand. “It’s an easy activity that does not need but asks for six hands,” Van Sise says. “Recruit your kids for help, if you’ve got them. Trust me: they’ll remember it, fondly.”

Ingredients
Pasta
2 pounds ricotta cheese
4 eggs
4 cups flour
2 teaspoons salt
1 teaspoon pepper
Sauce
1 16 oz. jar roasted red peppers
1⁄2 cup heavy cream
4 tablespoons garlic
2 tablespoons butter
1⁄2 teaspoon dried basil
black pepper

Steps
1. In a large mixing bowl, mix the ricotta and eggs. Gradually add the flour, salt, and pepper.
2. Knead well on a floured board and roll into finger-sized long rolls, then cut into pieces about 3⁄4 inch long.
3. Bring a large pot of salted water to a boil. Add the gnocchi, stirring gently from time to time to make sure they don’t mingle too much. Cook for 8 minutes.
4. Meanwhile, in a blender, add the roasted red peppers as well as about 2 tablespoons of liquid from the jar, and puree.
5. In a saucepan, sauté the garlic and butter for approximately 2 minutes until both the butter and garlic soften; add the pureed peppers, the basil, and a little bit of black pepper. Simmer for 5 minutes, then add the heavy cream and simmer for 5 more.
6. Cover the drained gnocchi with the sauce, and either serve right away or put into a preheated oven at 350 degrees for 10 minutes to crisp them up.

Yield: 4 to 6 servings l Time: About 40 minutes

Serving Those Who Are Hungry

The economic impact of the coronavirus pandemic has led to an increase in the number of people who can’t afford food and are at risk of going hungry. Fordham graduates are among the many professionals working to meet the challenges of this deepening public health crisis. Read our interviews with Camesha Grant, Ph.D., GSS ’00, ’07, vice president of community connection and reach at the Food Bank for New York City; and Janet Miller, GSS ’97, senior vice president at CAMBA, a Brooklyn-based nonprofit that provides social services to New Yorkers in need.

Additional reporting by Tom Stoelker.

Camesha Grant, Ph.D., GSS ’00, ’07
Vice President of Community Connection and Reach
Food Bank for New York City

The Food Bank for New York City not only operates its own soup kitchen and food pantry in Harlem and a warehouse in the Bronx, but it also has a network of more than 1,000 charities and schools to help provide 62.5 million meals each year. Combined, these pantries see an average of 1.5 million New Yorkers per year, based on numbers prior to the COVID-19 pandemic.

How has your day-to-day work changed since the outbreak began?
A lot of my work involves going out into the community, connecting with those on the front lines in our soup kitchens and our pantries. Also, building and establishing new partnerships with organizations across the city to really be able to meet the need where it is as it relates to emergency food. So my work looks really, really different now because I am working from home.

About 40% of the soup kitchens and food pantries in Food Bank for New York City’s network have closed as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic. And that means that the communities where those pantries and soup kitchens once existed now have gaps in terms of emergency food. So we’ve been really strategically working to get into those communities by getting food and additional resources to some of the partners who are still open. Some of our agencies have mobile pantries and can move food differently throughout the city. And so we have been working to get them more food on the ground as well.

How do things look different now at the pantries that are still open?
One of the things that they’ve done is shifted to a grab-and-go model. So, generally, we would have all of our pantries practice what we call “client choice.” Client choice is the ability for any individual who is food insecure to go in and shop for the food items that they want. Now our clients are no longer able to come into the pantry spaces, and all of our soup kitchens are pre-packing bags of groceries. It takes away, obviously, the ability to choose and decreases the dignity in that process, because we want clients to be able to feel like they’re shopping in a supermarket. So that’s been one real change.

Have clients have been understanding of these changes?
The clients are definitely understanding of the changes that we’ve had to make. I think they appreciate that we are working to ensure social distancing. Food Bank for New York City has been working with our network of soup kitchens and pantries around how to set your pantry up in this new COVID-19 world. So we provided guidance around social distancing, outdoor setups, additional equipment like tables and gloves and masks. We have been able to provide some PPE equipment to our pantries. We’ve also been able to get them bags, a huge resource right now because they’re packing so many bags to go for families. Clients are certainly appreciative of the steps that we’ve taken. I think they recognize that it’s about their safety as well. No one wants to be standing on a line right now.

With so many people out of work right now, we’re also seeing a new wave of New Yorkers who are forced to join the pantry lines. And so these are people who are new to our space. They don’t really understand how the Food Bank and how food pantries run. And so for them, there’s no comparison. They’re just there, and they’re getting what they need. And they’re happy to be able to do that.

I know that normally the Food Bank, in addition to overseeing pantries, also does educational programs and helps clients apply for SNAP and other benefits. Has the capacity still been there for the Food Bank to do that?
We are still doing our benefits work remotely. We’re able to engage New Yorkers over the phone who are interested in applying for SNAP (Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program) benefits. We are working on a platform for virtual nutrition education with schools being closed. One of the programs that we run is called CookShop, and it is nutrition education for children in schools, and that curricula is administered by teachers. And so we have been in conversation with the Department of Education, and we’re still looking at ways that we might be able to continue that programming.

Have you experienced any positive moments or moments of hope you could tell us about?
I’d say a couple of things. We made a decision a few weeks back to stop having volunteers come in [to our Harlem food pantry and Bronx warehouse]. We really wanted to, just for the safety of everyone, minimize the number of people that were in our space. But we also wanted to still be able to engage New Yorkers. So we started a campaign that allows New Yorkers to write notes to our clients. And those notes are just notes of hope, notes of encouragement, and they are placed in the pantry bags. I think that that’s really encouraging, that so many New Yorkers are interested in wanting to just say a few kind words to those who are struggling right now with food insecurity.

I think other examples are really just hearing from different types of organizations that we haven’t worked with before. We are currently partnering with NYC Health + Hospitals, and Food Bank for New York City has been able to distribute food, grocery bags, and hygiene bags to the front line workers. They’ve been extremely excited to have a bag of groceries at the end of the shift. They don’t have the time after working really long shifts to go into a supermarket, to stand on lines to shop for their families.

And we’ve also been in partnership with the New York City Housing Authority (NYCHA). Low-income families primarily reside in New York City housing, and we’ve worked with NYCHA to host what we call pop-up pantries in probably over 20 locations to date since COVID-19. We take in truckloads of food, set up right on a sidewalk, a pop-up pantry where those families can just come out of their apartments, join a line, and leave with a bag of groceries all for free.

How is the Food Bank planning for the long-term changes that are going to have to occur because of this?
We’re collecting a lot of data right now on the ground. We surveyed our members in our network. One of the things we know for sure is that we can’t go back to business as usual. The emergency feeding network will look different. We don’t know how many of our members will reopen, with 40% of them now currently being closed. So we have to prepare for creative and innovative ways to ensure that emergency food is still available in those communities.

Is there anything else that you would like the public to know about the overlap between the public health crisis and food insecurity?
I think that people across the country are experiencing fear and uncertainty right now, but that’s especially magnified for low-income families and vulnerable populations. And the coronavirus has also become a food insecurity issue for millions of low-income seniors, including 350,000 right here in New York City who rely on emergency food.

So while public health officials recommend that seniors stay home and avoid group activities, that fails to address the daily struggle of low-income seniors who lack access to healthy foods and who cannot afford to stock up on groceries. And I don’t know that that issue is really one that we are addressing in a way that we need to. At Food Bank for New York City, we’re doing what we can to ensure that those seniors are getting their needs met. I know the Department for the Aging is also supporting that, but there’s a huge crisis there when you think about seniors who are not coming out of their homes, many who live alone, many who are unable to cook for themselves, many who are on fixed incomes, and again don’t have the ability to stock groceries or shop for food. It really has become a food security crisis for that population.

Janet Miller, GSS ’97
Senior Vice President, CAMBA

As senior vice president at CAMBA, a Brooklyn-based nonprofit that provides social services to New Yorkers in need, Janet Miller, GSS ’97, oversees the organization’s food and nutrition programs, including its Beyond Hunger Emergency Food Pantry in Flatbush.

During normal times, what work does CAMBA do to address food security issues in New York City?
Besides routinely providing clients with bags of groceries to last three days, CAMBA’s Beyond Hunger Emergency Food Pantry provides nutrition education that has included cooking demonstrations and sharing recipes for wholesome meals; assists people with applications for public assistance, such as SNAP benefits, previously known as “food stamps”; and also provides information and referrals to money management, social service programs, and health care providers, as needed. CAMBA also has our Food and Nutrition Services Program for People Living with HIV/AIDS and our Healthy Families Program.

How has that work changed since the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic? Are you seeing a significant increase in need?
On average, our food pantry serves about 300 clients a week, but during the week of April 13, about 400 people sought assistance. And on one day [in April], there were almost 300 people who used the pantry. We anticipate that these numbers will continue to grow, because other food pantries have had to suspend their services, and open pantries like ours will absorb these growing numbers. And of course more people have lost their jobs or sources of income that help pay for food and rent.

Where are you seeing the biggest shortages or challenges during this time?
One immediate change is we currently are not able to offer additional help with nutrition education and have limited capacity to help with applications for other types of assistance, as the numbers of people needing food keeps increasing. There are fewer volunteers as people are self-isolating and that means fewer workers to assist with the increased distribution. We have masks and gloves—but can always use more—and we practice social distancing during our process. Whereas we previously encouraged clients to “shop our pantry” and pick out what they want, we’re now pre-packing food for everyone. Previously, we would provide three days of groceries to tide clients over between our pantry days (Tuesday and Thursday), but now we’re trying to pack bags that contain groceries for one to two weeks so clients have to make fewer visits during this pandemic.

The challenge will be continuing to provide food for the increased numbers of people seeking help. We’ll need more donations to buy the products; certainly, we don’t want to run out of food.

What kind of systems are in place to get food to people who can’t leave their homes or places of shelter?
We refer people to the NYC.gov site that lists various resources for food delivery assistance. Here they will also find locations for other food pantries. The NYC schools are also providing food for New Yorkers at 400 different locations.

Long-term, will the pandemic change anything about the way CAMBA’s food pantry operates? Are social-distancing-minded practices something that can be adapted to the food pantry model?
We already have an orderly distribution process where one guest at a time is able to do her “shopping.” We hope to return to providing our previous range of services to address the underlying challenges that bring our clients to a food pantry.

What can alumni both in NYC and elsewhere do to help address food security issues in their communities, both during the pandemic and after?
We would encourage people to donate time or money to organizations that work with food insecurity issues. In New York City, those interested in volunteering can go to the NYC Service website. Check online or call before offering to volunteer at any food pantry, as there may be a formal process for bringing on volunteers.

People should also consider advocating for more federal assistance on this issue—that there be no cuts or severe restrictions to SNAP and other food programs. No one should go hungry in this country. Food insecurity was a problem before the COVID-19 pandemic, and will remain an issue after we progress beyond current constraints. Even if things get better, people will still be hungry. That should not be.

Over the summer, students received a collection of essays by New York Times and T Magazine columnist Ligaya Mishan. Mishan has been chosen as this year’s Mary Higgins Clark Chair in Creative Writing. She is known for her Hungry City column, which explores many of New York’s unsung restaurants and multicultural fare often found in the city’s outer boroughs. Yes, she reviews haute cuisine, but she also grapples with cultural issues found in the workaday kitchens of Jackson Heights, Queens, or Brighton Beach, Brooklyn.

“My job was to tell you whether the food was good or not and describe the food, but at a certain point I ran out of words,” she told FCLC students at their Aug. 27 orientation. “I had to find the stories around the food. Once I started asking questions and found out the stories about the people who make the food, that was far more interesting than whether it was delicious or not.” Mishan’s essays and talk provided a precursor for the year that lies ahead. She delved into questions of authenticity, cultural appropriation, and the very notion of “ethnic” food.

“Everybody has ethnicity,” she said. “In the West, we only think of ethnic as nonwestern.”

Sarah Gambito, associate professor and director of the creative writing program, was on the committee that helped select Mishan as the Mary Higgins Clark Chair.

“She’s really a cultural critic,” said Gambito, adding that the Mishan also happens to be the first person of color to hold the chair.

“We were interested in food as culture,” said Gambito, author of Loves You, a book published this year that is part poetry, part cookbook. “A lot of our first-year students are new to New York City … Food is a way to travel and learn about the city.”

Mishan will return to campus on Oct. 7 to deliver the annual Mary Higgins Clark lecture, titled, “Off the Rails in Hungry City: Confessions of an Accidental Food Writer.” The lecture is open to the public, though first-year students are particularly encouraged to attend. Gambito said, “Part of the mission of the chair is to provide different avenues of thought for students to find their way in the world.” To that end, Mishan will return once again in the spring to offer students a food-centered walking tour.

Thinking Beyond Food as Culture

When one thinks of food, one often conjures images of home and one’s culture. But there are other things to think about when studying the food we eat. There are environmental concerns related to mass food production. There are body image and eating disorders to consider. There are food deserts. All this, and much more, will be parsed and pondered by the Fordham College of Lincoln Center Class of 2023, said FCLC Dean Laura Auricchio, Ph.D.

Auricchio said she, too, usually associates food with culture. She remembers when her Italian-born grandmother prepared Sunday dinners served at 3 p.m. While the meatball recipe was shared, her grandmother clearly left something out.

“No one could ever replicate them, how do they compare to grandma’s became a mythical link to our Italian past,” she said. “But when [my grandmother]came to the U.S., it wasn’t ethnic food; it was just food, it was food of the lower classes.”

But whether it was her meatballs served by her father’s side of the family or corned beef and cabbage dished out on her mother’s side, her New York City upbringing was distinct from the experience of young people growing up in “food deserts” found in the city’s poorest neighborhoods, where fast-food restaurants vastly outnumber supermarkets with fresh vegetables. She said this would be one of the many issues that “Food for Thought” will also address.

On Oct. 10, up to 15 students can sign up to visit and help garden at the New York Botanical Garden’s Edible Academy. The academy is a hands-on educational garden where local kids from the Bronx get the rare opportunity to help raise and harvest vegetables. Ram Vans will take FCLC students to the garden for a tour, a bit of gardening, and a tasting.

“We want students to learn about food insecurity and food deserts,” said Auricchio. “But we also have a great relationship with the Botanical Garden that we want Lincoln Center students to take advantage of.”

With the support of the Office of the Dean of Students, Office of Residential Life, and other University groups, the Fordham College at Lincoln Center Dean’s Office has commitments to hold several other events with dates yet to be announced.

Continuing on the theme of food justice, Associate Professor of Spanish Carey Kasten, Ph.D., will take students to visit New Roots Community Farm, a Bronx collective that provides urban agriculture education to nearby residents.

A visit to “Chow,” an exhibition at the Museum of Food and Drink, will examine how Chinese American restaurants relate to notions of stereotype, tradition, food culture, and what it means to be American.

Together with Aramark, Fordham food services will provide “city nights,” highlighting the cuisine of different cities and regions, from Chicago’s deep dish pizzas to Philly’s cheesesteaks. The theme nights should help cure a bit of homesickness, Auricchio said, and allows students to share their local fare.

In partnership with Counseling and Psychological Services, the FCLC dean’s office will hold a session on eating disorders, which affects more students than many realize.

“We have a myth in our mind about who suffers from eating disorders; even if you don’t have that challenge, you may very well have friends and family who are struggling with eating disorders and you might not know,” said Auricchio.

In partnership with Campus Ministry, the Center for Community Engaged Learning, Commuter Freshmen Mentors, and Residential Life, there will be opportunities for students to engage with St. Paul the Apostle’s food projects.

“We wanted to create events where commuter students and resident students could engage in our community right here in the Lincoln Center neighborhood,” said Auricchio. “Most people think of this as a very wealthy area, and it is, but there’s also a lot of need here. We can engage with those communities and we should.”

Fabio Parasecoli, author of Food (MIT Press, 2019), will drop by for a lunchtime talk on food networks focusing on how food gets to our tables.

“Every time we eat we connect to these complex networks and we need to think of the impact that they have on the world,” said Auricchio.

Get ready to live it up in the Boogie Down.

It’s the Bronx, a festival that celebrates art, music, food, and hustle which the city’s northernmost borough is famous for, will kick off on March 23rd at the Andrew Freedman Home. The all-day event will begin with panel discussions with Bronx influencers, including Saraciea Fennell, the founder of #TheBronxisReading, and will culminate with a night of music and performances by over two dozen artists. The festival will continue once a month from May through October.

The preview event for It’s the Bronx on Jan. 26 at the Bronx Brewery attracted hundreds of Bronx creatives, entrepreneurs, art supporters, and food and beer lovers.

“It was an amazing and overwhelming experience to perform there. To be surrounded by so many talented people from the Bronx—it felt like home,” says singer-songwriter Mati, one of the festival’s headliners.

Mati has been performing since she was 12. Her music is a combination of rhythm and blues and Bengali Lalon Geeti. “I perform in the Bronx every chance that I can get. The crowd’s energy is different from Manhattan and Brooklyn.”

“This event is all about the “come-up,” says Marco Shalma, the founder of It’s the Bronx. “We want to get local creatives in front of larger audiences, engage with them to the highest industry standards, and put them in contact with decision-makers.“

The festival will feature the Bronx’s most notable “hustlers,” like Jessica Cunnington from News12, Amaurys Grullon of Bronx Native, Dandy In the Bronx and more. The main sponsor, the Bronx Brewery, will serve local craft beer. Jibarito Shack, Empanology, No Carne, and the Uptown Vegan will dish up local cuisine.

Also featured in the day’s lineup are a DJ turntable battle and a fine art gallery exhibition showcasing the work of local Bronx photographers, graphic designers, illustrators, and painters.

Shalma and his team have donated their after-work hours in order to bring this event to the community.  “Any profits for the event will be allocated toward a stipend for the team, a donation to the Andrew Freedman Home and the Bronx Creative Alliance, a non-for-profit we have been working to put together, to give the creatives in the community legal, financial, and admin support.”

This festival is just the start, says Shalma, who was one of the co-founders behind the Bronx Night Market. “The team and I like to dream big, wanting to get the entire city behind the idea of supporting up-and-comers. In three to four years? A qualifier event in each borough leading to a citywide weekend celebrating hustle.”

On Sept. 28, Fordham addressed the problem, with “Reduce Hunger: Pope Francis’ Call for New Approaches,” a day-long conference presented by the Centesimus Annus Pro Pontifice USA Foundation and the University’s Graduate Program in International Political and Economic Development.

Archbishop Bernardito Auza, apostolic nuncio and permanent observer of the Holy See to the United Nations, opened the day’s events with a morning talk, and after a day of presentations, panels and workshops, Archbishop Paul Gallagher, secretary for relations with states at the Holy See, closed it out with a dinner address at Fordham Law School.

Economist Christopher Barrett, Ph.D., mapped out the challenges facing humanity in a morning presentation titled “Meeting the Global Food Security Challenges.”
Barrett, the Stephen B. and Janice G. Ashley Professor of Applied Economics and international professor of agriculture at Cornell University, was quick to note that the progress that’s been made on the issue of food insecurity over the last 50 years has been “nothing short of astounding.”

Remarkable Progress

As recently as the late 1940s, he noted, his grandmother found herself in dire straits in the Netherlands in the immediate aftermath of World War II, something that’s inconceivable today, he said. Likewise, the number of children suffering from stunted growth has shrunk dramatically in recent years, thanks in part to the “green revolution,” which Barrett described as innovations during the 1960s, ’70s and ’80s in agricultural production technologies, improved seed varieties, improved varieties of inorganic fertilizer, and better water management.

“There are remarkable accomplishments in improving the productivity of the earth in producing the food to sustain people. Today we have more than six billion people getting enough dietary energy intake, which is a tripling over the course of my lifetime,” he said.

“But agriculture is a treadmill. There’s always a pressure carrying you backwards, and if you don’t run, you’ll get slammed into something behind you that you can’t see.”

Governments and industry grew complacent in the late 1980s and ’90s, he said, and slowed its investment in global agricultural research and development. The result is that global food prices hit their all-time inflation-adjusted low point from 2000 to 2002; today the cost of food is 50 percent higher than it was just 15 or so years ago.

Changing Needs

Barrett said part of the problem is that research has returned to boost the productivity of wheat, corn and rice, but as human diets have improved, what’s needed more now are micronutrients such as vitamins and minerals. Today, for instance, the leading cause of blindness in children is simple beta keratin deficiency. When your grandmother told you to eat your carrots, she was serious, he said.

“But we need access to carrots. Fresh fruits and vegetables, animal-sourced fruits, the primary sources of the vitamins and minerals essential to an active, healthy life, don’t come from cereals, although there’s some remarkable improvements taking place through biofortification,” he said.

“Zinc deficiency, iron deficiency, these things are serious limitations of human performance, and this where we need to be focusing far more of our energy today.

“The old approach of grow the pile of rice, was important in the 1960s and ’70s. We’ve largely figured out how to do that, and we can’t take our foot off the pedal. But we need to be increasingly turning our attention to these other dimensions that we didn’t spend enough time on before.”

Poverty Traps

Another change from years past is that human suffering has also become much more geographically concentrated. The number of people who could be classified as the ultra poor, which is someone who subsists on 95 cents a day, has declined dramatically from roughly half a billion a generation ago, with about a 120 million of those people in Sub-Saharan Africa. Today, there are 150 million ultra poor, but the percentage in Africa has grown. Today eight out of ten of the ultra poor live in Sub-Saharan Africa, and in South Sudan, Yemen, and a small number of other nations.

Encouraging Developments

Many encouraging trends are emerging thanks to innovations from both the private sector and governments, Barrett said. Genetic engineering, for instance, holds great promise, and he urged attendees not to dismiss it.
“How many of you want your grandchildren to eat banana or papaya? You have nearly no hope of that happening without genetic engineering. The papaya industry has been saved through genetic engineering against ring spot virus,” he said.

“It’s not that all of it is good, and you have to have careful regulatory controls over things. But why should we tie our hands behind our back when we have a big fight ahead of ourselves? Some of these technologies are going to be essential to us.”

Barrett was also optimistic about innovative projects underway that attempt to recover phosphorus, which can be used for fertilizer, from the bones of dead animals. Food loss and waste is unfortunately inevitable, so recapturing what is a necessary waste. Above all, he said, this is team sport.

“This is not something that anybody is going to solve individually. There are too many moving parts,” he said.

A Message from Pope Francis

The dinner, which took place on the 7th floor of the Law School, was attended by Joseph M. McShane, S.J., president of Fordham, as well as Archbishop Auza,; Daniel Gustafson, Ph.D., deputy director general, U.N. Food and Agricultural Organization; Bill O’Keefe, vice president of Catholic Relief Services; Eutimio Tiliacos, Ph.D., secretary general, Centesimus Anno Pro Pontifice, Vatican City;  Fred Frakharzadeh, M.D, president, Centesimus Anno Pro Pontifice, USA, and several university professors who specialize in agriculture and food security.

At the dinner, Archbishop Gallagher was presented with a copy of Fordham University’s Pope Francis Global Poverty Index, a multidimensional measure of international poverty inspired by the pope’s address to the United Nations General Assembly in 2015.

In a statement issued Saturday by the Vatican, Pope Francis thanked Fordham for organizing the conference, noting that as with many of the social and humanitarian challenges confronting the international community, his approach to reducing hunger “is not based on mere sentiment or a vague empathy.”

“Rather, it is a call for justice, not a plea or an emergency appeal. There is a need for broad and sincere dialogue at all levels, so that the best solutions can emerge and a new relationship among the various actors on the international scene can mature, characterized by mutual responsibility, solidarity, and communion,” he said.

“I made pizza for months on end, to the point where my friends said I was totally crazy. I would have dozens of different types of tomatoes and dough samples and try recipes that affected the flavor profile,” he said.

The pressure was on, because Burke wasn’t planning on opening just any pizza place. He was going to serve deep-dish pizza. From Chicago. In New York.

It had to represent.

“When I got to a taste that reminded me of back home, I thought, ‘People would pay for this,’” said the Windy City native. It was only then that he started looking for a location.

The cozy MacDougal Street spot he opened in 2013 offers diners some serious Chicago eats. In addition to the seven varieties of deep-dish, there are also seven types of Chicago thin crust pizza (yes, it’s a thing), a Chicago-style hot dog, and an Italian beef sandwich.

FORDHAM magazine’s staff stopped in to Emmett’s for lunch on a recent Friday in October. The pies, made to order, can’t be rushed. No matter, though. The sunlight pouring in from the front windows, the fall breeze, and the ladies lingering over wine at the bar with their shopping bags reminded us that we weren’t in a rush, either. We sampled a couple of draft brews from Chicago, though the extensive beer and wine lists offered plenty of domestic and imported options.

The Food

The pizzas arrived on a silver pedestal accompanied by a small hourglass—warning  us to give the thick, substantial pies two minutes to settle. Topped with bold, chunky tomato sauce that was pleasantly tangy, and filled with plenty of oozing-yet-chewy mozzarella, these 10-inch pies were admirably contained by a sturdy, slightly crunchy, two-inch-at-the-edge crust.

The Italian beef sandwich and the Chicago hot dog—totally foreign to us Northeasterners—were both piled with all sorts of flavorful accoutrements. The beef came with giardiniera, a pickled blend of hot peppers and other vegetables, topping the almost pillowy bed of slow-roasted meat, which had a kick of its own. And the dog was covered with (organic) tomatoes, onions, and neon green relish.

It’s easy to tell that Burke takes care with his ingredients; the basil was fresh, the spices robust, and the sausage in our Meat Lovers pie was something worthy of your grandmother’s Sunday sauce. He gets it from Teitel Brothers on Arthur Avenue. “I spent time there in my days at Rose Hill and loved their cheeses, loved their sausage. When you walk in it feels like a real Italian food purveyor. It was fun to revisit the place.”

The Idea

Burke had the idea for Emmett’s while he was a Fordham student. As a newcomer to New York, he was surprised at the city’s lack of authentic deep-dish. “I thought that was crazy, because growing up in Chicago, it’s quite common for people to eat it on a regular basis,” he said. In his sophomore year at the Gabelli School, he was charged with designing a company for a marketing class, and he came up with Emmett’s. “Looking back, the idea hasn’t really changed much,” he said. “It’s a neighborhood-style restaurant that serves foods I grew up with and missed.”

The Rivalry

So does Burke get ribbed about bringing deep-dish to a city that lives and dies by its New York slice? Sure. But it’s all in good fun.

“You have to have fun with it, because it’s a constant thing. You have to play it up and embrace it. I love New York. I’ve spent almost half my life here. … And Chicago is who I am and it is a city I’m very, very proud of. I really don’t feel that the city gets as much respect as it deserves, whether it’s culturally or in the culinary world. … I think a lot has to do with this Chicago-New York rivalry.”

Two years ago, when the Mets played the Cubs in the National League Championships, Burke made a bet with pizza maker Mark Iacono, owner of Lucali in Brooklyn, a favorite of Beyoncé and Jay-Z. If the Cubs lost, Burke would have to make pizza at Lucali, and if the Mets lost, Iacono would have to try his hand at some deep-dish. The Mets won, but Burke has yet to make good on the bet. “We haven’t done that yet. He doesn’t want me to disrespect the oven,” he said, laughing. “But it’ll happen.”

Burke delivered pizzas in high school, but that was about as much culinary experience as he had before his pizza experimenting. At the Gabelli School he studied finance, interning at Merrill Lynch. “I really kind of cut my teeth in New York City at a young age, and that was really fun,” he said. After Fordham, he worked for a hedge fund then a bank in Chicago that transferred him back to New York when the financial crisis hit. They proposed a promotion in San Francisco, and Burke realized his heart wasn’t in that world anymore. So he took some time off and decided to pursue his pizza idea.

“I would say the first thing that really helped me was that I didn’t know anything. It was humbling in the sense that if you want to learn something, you have to start from zero and learn all the steps,” he said.

The Vibe

Burke’s buddy Brett Danahy, a friend from his Fordham days and a fellow restaurateur, has watched Emmett’s progression from endless pizza tinkering to a successful restaurant with up to a two-hour wait on weekend nights. He said he’s impressed with his friend’s execution of his college idea.

“The void in the marketplace, he’s not the first to see that,” said Danahy, a sports agent and an owner of Ledger restaurant in Salem, Massachusetts. “To be able to grow and focus on improvement—that’s the real magic.” Burke was “always pretty good at not being satisfied,” he said.

Danahy gets to Emmett’s about a dozen times a year. “It’s what I miss about New York, the little neighborhood spots,” he said. “Emmett’s is truly a community. People know him and ask for him and Dillon [Burke’s brother who bartends and helps manage the restaurant]. That is the core of that place.”

Burke cultivates a friendly café vibe and decorates the place with charming curiosities. He’s covered the bathroom doors with stickers from ’80s concerts and classic old slogans. And hanging behind the bar are pink, blue, and green bills of foreign currency—some given to him by customers, including travelers from South Korea and India.

And he’s still tinkering with his recipes, trying new ingredients all the time.

“It’s still constantly trial and error, because you are never going to make the perfect pizza or have the perfect golf swing,” said Burke, an avid golfer who played at Fordham, “but it’s a process, which is really fun.” Though he lives just a few blocks from the restaurant, he’s also got a place in Westchester with a garden and a greenhouse. He wants to start canning his own tomatoes and try his hand at an heirloom tomato sauce.

But for as much heart as Burke puts into his pizza, he’ll be the first to say it’s not all about the food. “Some people come in, they won’t even eat pizza,” he said. “They may have a glass of wine or a beer and just chat with their friends. We have really fostered this nice, local, neighborhood gathering.”

In the ancient world, however, it was a powerful idea that had to do with more than just physical health. Food and mother’s milk were seen as related to character, and would also become symbols of spiritual growth and nourishment among the earliest Christians, according to a new book by a Fordham-educated scholar of religion.

“That you are formed according to the one feeding you is something you would see often in both Roman and early Christian literature,” said John Penniman, Ph.D., GSAS ’15, assistant professor in the religious studies department at Bucknell University.

His book, Raised on Christian Milk: Food and the Formation of the Soul in Early Christianity (Yale University Press, 2017), was released last spring. Penniman spoke with FORDHAM magazine about how the idea emerged as he was earning his doctorate in Fordham’s theology department—and his surprise discovery about how much history you can find behind a common catchphrase.

How did you get the idea for this book?

It began during my doctoral work at Fordham, when I was thinking about how early Christians talked about being formed properly according to their ideals. In ancient and early Christian literature, I began to regularly notice references to food, nurturance, breastfeeding, and maternity, even when that wasn’t literally what was being described. It was being used to talk about how to properly form the soul, in a certain sense, so I began to explore the use of food to talk about formation, and focused on a New Testament passage where the apostle Paul says to the Corinthians, “You are not ready for solid food, so I gave you milk to drink instead”—because they are still infants and not fully formed, essentially.

In early Christian literature, this passage gets interpreted in wildly different ways. It seems like Paul is saying the Corinthians are infantile and not ready for advanced teachings. Others in later generations of early Christianity used that passage as a way to think, “Well, in these circumstances it would be good to be infantile because you are being properly fed, you’re being fed by the right source, you’re not getting ‘wrong’ food that’s going to deform you.”

Why was this such a potent metaphor for Paul to use?

The metaphor was widely used to think about growth and character formation in that period. It actually drew upon deep political and social values that were much broader in the Roman empire than just early Christians, and these values looked at mother’s milk as literally a carrier for moral character, for social belonging, for intellectual capacities, even for social legitimacy or ethnic belonging in certain respects. Milk was politicized in really significant ways in the Roman empire, and my argument is that Paul is actually drawing upon this symbolic value when he’s evoking it metaphorically.

Does this mean the Romans believed in nurture rather than nature?

What I discovered, and what was really surprising to me, was that you could be born into a really highly regarded aristocratic family, but it was thought that if you weren’t fed properly, you would become deformed in character and soul, and by that they often meant who nursed you as a child, who minded you as a child. Nurture was shaping nature in that way; your nature wasn’t complete at birth, according to ancient Roman medical and moral thought, and early Christians really picked up on this. It wasn’t that they emphasized nurture more than nature, it’s that the categories themselves were really slippery and didn’t uphold that dichotomy in quite the same way that we think about it today.

Was solid food invested with the same importance that milk was?

In one early Christian text, by Origen of Alexandria, solid food functions as a metaphor for social status. He basically says the rustic folks who work out in the fields don’t have the palate or the stomach for rich foods compared to folks who live in the city, who have more means, so they must be given lighter fare. From this he sort of spins out a way to say not everybody can be taught the same way. And he thinks this is quite natural—the higher-status person in the city is going to eat richer foods, more animal protein, whereas the farmer is going to have blander foods and less animal protein, and for him that becomes a way to ask, what are the “solid foods” to which one could aspire spiritually?

Did these early thinkers give us the cliché “you are what you eat”?

The 19th-century German philosopher Ludwig Feuerbach is the one that really popularized it. And he was mocked for it—people thought he was being reductive and overly materialistic. What’s fascinating is that in defending himself he turned to the ancient world and how ancient people thought about food. So I unexpectedly discovered that this cliché leads us directly into the ancient world, and that food has always been this deeper, more deeply significant symbol that you take into yourself.

“To my grandfather, it has always been family first,” says Gabriella Macari, GABELLI ’09, “and it still is.”

A certified sommelier, Macari spent her childhood riding horses and tractors on the farm after her parents left Queens for Mattituck to plant vines and breathe life back into the 500 fallow acres perched above the Long Island Sound.

Thanks to the family’s dedication and an ecological and holistic approach to growing grapes, Macari Vineyards is thriving today.

“My father created a composting program and we have our own herd of longhorn cattle,” Macari explains, adding that the farm is also home to horses, ducks, pigs, chickens, and one peacock. This biodiversity ensures rich soil in which healthy fruit has grown abundantly and yielded bountiful harvests every year since the mid-1990s—with only one exception: In 2009, the results fell short of the family’s expectations.

That August, the family received a visit from Joseph M. McShane, S.J., president of Fordham.

“Father McShane came out and blessed our vineyards,” Macari recalls, “and wouldn’t you know, the following year we had the most spectacular harvest ever.”

To carry out his father’s vision of establishing a successful family winery, Joseph Macari Jr. (Gabriella’s dad) studied biodynamic viticulture with the late Alan York from California and Alvaro Espinoza of Chile. Now, he and his wife, Alexandra, along with Gabriella and her younger brothers—Joseph, Thomas, and Edward—operate the business together full time.

Gabriella heads up the vineyard’s marketing and distribution efforts, promotes the Macari brand, assists in the cellar, and hosts tours and tastings for corporate groups.

Recognizing that her industry is vast and ever changing, she continues to expand her education. In September, she was accepted into the Institute of Masters of Wine study program, a highly selective and rigorous program that accepted only 88 candidates this year and inducted just 13 new Masters of Wine. The “MW” distinction, held by 354 professionals across 28 countries, recognizes individuals with the highest knowledge and ability in the art, science, and business of wine, equipping them to excel in all disciplines, from winemaking to viticulture to retailing.

Macari completed the Wine Executive Program at the UC Davis Graduate School of Management in 2013 and earned a Level 4 Diploma in Wine and Spirits—a prestigious recognition from the Wine & Spirit Education Trust. She also interned abroad in the Champagne and Bordeaux regions of France, where she learned about production and expanded her international network. As an independent consultant, she has lent her expertise to well-known vintners, such as Ribera del Duero, Wines from Spain, and Moët Hennessy.

Broadening Macari Vineyards’ distribution nationwide and sharing her knowledge and love of wine with others are among Macari’s goals.

“I want to help make learning about wine more approachable and less intimidating,” Macari says. She is also pleased that consumers are embracing wines made locally and domestically.

“As long as the quality remains high and producers keep pushing forward, local and domestic wines will be finding more homes on retail shelves and wine lists,” she says.

This trend is noteworthy in a market that for years been dominated by imports. And it’s especially promising for the future of a Long Island vineyard that began with one man’s vision and a family tradition now in its third generation.

—Claire Curry

Indeed, for Trebek, owning a restaurant is about much more than food.

“There was just something about the hospitality industry that I fell in love with,” he says. “It’s great because it’s very free form in that it allows you to venture out into so many different fields: design, food, drinks, music, graphic design, and even just talking to people.”

Trebek had bartended at various Manhattan spots before graduating from Fordham in 2013, but it was a stint serving drinks at the since-shuttered restaurant Willow Road in Chelsea that set into motion his career as a restaurateur. While there, Trebek became enamored not just with mixology but with the architectural design of restaurants. He connected with the designer who had worked on Willow Road’s interior, and began working as a carpenter for his company. Eventually, Trebek and his business partner—the guy who’d shown him the ropes at the first of his bartending gigs in the city—had an idea for a restaurant of their own. And this past May, after three years of planning, the pair opened Oso, a 44-seat restaurant specializing in Mexican street food and craft cocktails.

Growing up in Los Angeles, Trebek—the son of Jeopardy! host Alex Trebek—would go to the local farmer’s market every Sunday to get carne asada tacos and quesadillas. He developed a love for the cuisine, and in talking with the vendors, learned about their recipes and style of cooking. But after moving to New York, he found the options for Mexican food lacking. “You’ll have a chef who will put his own spin on it, which is great, but it kind of loses its authenticity of being Mexican street food,” he says of the cuisine characterized by dishes that are quick to make and eat, and relatively inexpensive.

Trebek made two scouting trips to Mexico City, and Oso’s menu is inspired by the food he encountered. “The idea behind Oso was to take the street fare we loved [in Mexico City] and turn the dining experience into something communal rather than personalized,” he says. Everything in the restaurant is made from scratch, and he says the restaurant works with a family from Puebla to make sure things remain as authentic as possible. (The restaurant even makes two types of mole using recipes handed down by that family.)

Trebek says he doesn’t get his palette from his famous dad. “He would be fine eating chicken, white rice, and broccoli for the rest of his life,” he says. But his father—“a handyman at heart,” according to Matt—helped out in other ways, like following the construction progress and inspecting the space when visiting New York.

The opportunity to open a restaurant in Harlem that could become part of the fabric of the community was a big draw for Trebek. “Early on when we were scoping out spaces, we heard of a bar called Harlem Public,” he says. “We went there and saw such a strong community behind this place. It was seeing that type of vibe and support that really drew us to opening in Hamilton Heights.” There’s a strong sense of community within Oso’s leadership group, as well—both the restaurant’s chef and the project manager who oversaw the build-out live in the Harlem apartment building that Trebek owns and also lives in.

Because Trebek hired the same designer who’d worked on Willow Road, Oso includes some of Trebek’s favorite features from that space, from the open kitchen to the raw aesthetic that here takes the form of unfinished floors, faux-concrete walls, and reclaimed wood. And Trebek’s Mexico City visits helped inform the décor, too, from the graffiti mural to the the faux cow skull hanging opposite the bar to the greenery that helps hide some of the air conditioning ducts.

Trebek says he’d love to open another restaurant someday, and has even thought about what such a place might look like (more of an emphasis on the bar, he says). But for the moment, he’s focused on Oso. “Right now it’s kind of all hands on deck here, just trying to make this as perfect as it can be,” he says.

—Joe DeLessio, FCLC ’06, is an associate editor at New York magazine’s website and a frequent contributor this magazine.

The pair often throw spontaneous dinners for large groups. But on this rainy night they were expecting just a few friends. In their off-campus Bronx apartment, Otis Redding and Van Morrison tunes played, candles flickered, and their kitchen radiated warmth and a scent that was just barely sweet. Madsen was prepping the first course.

“I’m just making something to get you guys started,” he says to a guest, straightening up from the oven, where he’d been inspecting his loaf of sourdough. “I got into breadmaking last year. It’s really fun, because sourdough has a science. You have to create lacto-fermentation, you have to harvest your own yeast,” says the son of a chemistry teacher.

After quickly spraying some water into the oven to maintain humidity, he notes, “I’m working on perfecting crust. I remember being a little kid saying I don’t like the crust—now I’m so excited about crust!”

Madsen and Brown lived across the hall from each other freshman year and became fast friends, bonding over, among other things, their love of cooking. They moved in together last year, along with two other Gabelli students. They were excited to find an apartment with a nice kitchen and separate dining space, as well as a sprawling outdoor patio.

“We called this apartment ‘the Dream,’” Madsen says. “Other places were a little closer to campus, but we said, ‘this place has granite countertops!’” They’ve hosted large barbecues with homemade-barbecue-sauce ribs and live bands on their patio, as well as more low-key indoor gatherings. Last year, they had about 40 people over for a “Friendsgiving” feast—which included a 15-pound turkey and 15 pounds of ribs.

While he waits for Brown to come home with the evening’s main ingredients, Madsen gets to work on his spicy carrot soup, which he makes with carrots he picked from St. Rose’s Garden on the Rose Hill campus, where he volunteers. He’s also using some selects from his big batch of red and green peppers—spicy and sweet—which he grew himself. He dices and slices, tossing ingredients into the blender while keeping an eye on his bread. Soon he’ll plate them together—the sourdough ready to soak up the piping hot soup.

Brown arrives laden with packages from Arthur Avenue, where he and Madsen shop “almost exclusively.” He unwraps a thick, bright-red cut of beef from Vincent’s Meat Market (the “best butcher shop in the Bronx,” he says) a large silvery striped bass, and a slippery whole octopus, which he will confidently drop into a pot of boiling water.

Brown says he developed his culinary skills when he was a child. “I’m a really picky eater, so I cooked for myself,” except for when his father made southern food. “I made my own eggs—put stuff in them that I liked.”

Despite being busy college students and gourmet chefs, both young men have significant work responsibilities. Brown’s late father was an artist—a painter known for his portraits of jazz and blues musicians—so Brown works with museums and galleries that show his father’s work. He’s also on the executive board of ASILI—the Black student alliance at Fordham—and is a research assistant with Fordham’s Bronx African American History Project. Madsen works as a bookkeeper in his father’s real estate development firm, which brought him to Australia for the summer to work with a client. Both students are studying entrepreneurship at Gabelli.

With so much going on, one wouldn’t think there’d be time for such epicurean endeavors. But the roommates say that cooking helps them “de-stress.” Also? “We just really love doing it,” says Brown, who, truth be told, is not a total amateur. He worked for a time for a chef in Arizona who’s now working in France. His favorite thing to cook? Coq au vin.

With his creamy peppercorn sauce simmering, the octopus boiling, and the steak in the oven, Brown sits at the dining table with his laptop open. “Sorry, I’m finishing a paper,” he says. It’s midterm time so he must multitask, but he’s not worried that anything will burn or boil over. “At this point, I’ve been cooking so long I have an internal timer.”

Meanwhile, Madsen’s got his mind on his peppers and how they might complement the octopus.

“Can I make the sauce, Bentley? Please, please?”

Brown gives him the OK. “Jake loves sauces,” he tells a guest.

Madsen heads to the stove. “This sauce is new—today,” he declares. He concocts a thick, sweet and spicy sauce using passion fruit juice, pineapple chunks, vinegar, ketchup, and several treasures from St. Rose’s Garden, including tomatillos and cayenne, scorpion, and Tabasco peppers.

Madsen uses his peppers to make batches of hot sauce, which he always keeps on hand. After a friend gave him a Carolina Reaper plant—which yields the hottest pepper in the world—he decided to challenge himself. “I said, ‘I’m gonna make a hot sauce that uses Carolina Reaper that isn’t masochistic.” His finished product uses mango, pineapple, ginger, and lime, and as promised, does not set the mouth on fire. (Though it’s still got plenty of kick.)

Soon friends are trickling into the apartment, and everyone’s sitting down to eat. Eleni Koukoulas, a Gabelli School senior, said she’s been over once or twice before to eat with the Fordham foodies.

“It’s not very conventional college,” she says. “You could just tell it’s something they really love, and that they love to share it with other people.”

As everyone digs in, Brown hears one of his other roommates come in the front door. “Hey, Phil,” he shouts. “Come get you some food!”