first post!

I’m going to begin this blog with a quote from Oscar Wilde, who once wrote that “only dull people are brilliant at breakfast.”

Now, not to put down one of my favorite witty writers, but I beg to differ, big time.

You see, the life of a food enthusiast begins at breakfast – or even beforehand with dreams of it upon waking. My world is colored by the foods I cook and eat, and food and drink is the primary lens through which I choose to view the life that I live, and I’m not just ok with that, I’m damn proud of it! I find that there’s a lot we all can learn about ourselves and someone else through what they eat, what they don’t eat, and how and why they choose to cook or consume the things they do. Taste memories are some of my most intense and definitive ways that I reflect and negotiate my own identity in the present, as I’m about to graduate from NYU and stumble out into the real world – and I’d like to think that many people feel the same way, whether they know it or not.

Despite the troubling facts and figures concerning our factory food system here in the U.S, I’m actually optimistic and excited for the decade to come. When I started reading food blogs back in 2004, the genre was paltry and food policy stories were far and few, and this is certainly not the case anymore. We’ve entered a decade in which food has entered the limelight as a major player – not just in directing political conversation, but also in shaping cultural and social dialogue; it has become a major signifier of identity for many people, not just “foodies,” which seems like an expired term now. I’m interested in the way that the foods we eat make us who we are, in every sense of the word.

As for me, here’s just a few things about me, just based on eats.

1. I intern at Fine Cooking Magazine and love every minute of it.

2. I chose to live in Chinatown 2 years in a row at school, not because the dorm is great (it’s actually terrible, right nextdoor to a homeless shelter, a stone’s throw from Canal St. and across from a family court), but because Chinatown and Little Italy are paradises for unusual eats and inexpensive groceries. Living here has really helped me to step outside my comfort zone in the kitchen (and save money while doing it).

3. Not only am I a chowhound, but I also believe in the healing power of running, yoga and nutritious, whole foods as part of a balanced, healthy and happy life.

4. My favorite taste memory is also one of my earliest; my mother made a croquembouche with all the trimmings when I was four – including a delightful mess of spun sugar, using a tiered rack. When the croquembouche was assembled and the sugar caramelized and spun, I was given the leftover crystalline, lacy caramel threads. It’s my earliest memory of anything.

5. My favorite meal of the day is breakfast. For me, it’s the one (almost) guaranteed time of solitude and consistency in a day where anything can happen in a New York minute.

6. I enjoy wine and cocktails almost as much as food, and the dancing that goes along with them. Since I’m in college, sometimes balance is a difficult feat to achieve, and I’m not perfect – I’m constantly working to find it.

7. I live with three gorgeous and unbelievably bright ladies, and I’m the cook in the room. Our first “family” meal? My dad’s freshly caught striped bass, braised with zucchini, tomatoes and mirepoix, served over whole wheat couscous with some Pinot Noir. Followed by a night out on the town, dancing and bottle service. Yes.

8. My favorite cuisine? Israeli, hands down.

9. My day always ends with chocolate.

10. I fell in love for the first time while sharing the warm chocolate cake with white chocolate ice cream at Balthazar with my date. Although the relationship has long been over, the feeling of falling in love will always remind me of warm chocolate cake with white chocolate ice cream – of dizzily giving yourself away to the temptation of the rich dessert, of the contrasts against hot and cold, bitter and toothachingly sweet, and the satisfaction of an inexplicable hunger that transcends the physical in every savored forkful.

11. One more, just for kicks. I hope to become a food editor and writer “when I grow up.” There’s no way I can take a job that doesn’t involve my number one passion.

I’ve been wanting to start a blog for a while, because quite simply, I want to share my eats, musings and crazy 20-something life with the world “out there.” So, I give you Brilliant at Breakfast, where I’ll be showing you some of my daily eats, experiments and experiences in the kitchen, at the table and beyond, because a rich and exciting day really does begin at breakfast, and it evolves one bite at a time.

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