Salutations!

So Charlotte the spider hailed Wilbur the pig in Charlotte's Web. And so I salute you, oh Lordly and All-Knowing Internets!

I'm Rachel, the co-poster here at Gastronofiles. I moved to Boston last July from China, where I edited the Beijing section of a large (ish) expatriate entertainment magazine. (Incidentally I took over that job from the lovely Jenny, but I'll let her tell you about that if she so chooses.) While in Beijing I wrote and edited hundreds of 200-500 word articles on the following two themes: Yes Expatriates, A Western Lifestyle IS Possible in China! And, Let Me Interpret This Weird Chinese Custom For You!
You know, the meaty, hard-hitting stuff.

But were it not for that illustrious occupation I don't think I'd be here. I also wouldn't have racked up hundreds of dollars worth of acupuncture and therapy bills, but so it goes.

Today I'm a culinary student in Boston University's Certificate of Culinary Arts Program. I'm also getting a Master of Liberal Arts in Gastronomy from Metropolitan College, a division of BU. I'm hoping to do a Master's thesis on food centered creative-nonfiction, perhaps with a focus on Chinese food. The Culinary Arts Program is a 14 week long intensive cooking course in which you're taught by culinary bigwigs to the nth degree. In the past couple of months I've been lucky enough to work with Boston-based chefs like Michael Leviton, Longteine de Monteiro, Jorg Amsler, Raymond Ost, and Kevin Crawley. To my neverending amazement, I've cooked with Sara Moulton and Thomas Keller and will spend three days in April with Jacques Pepin. I do not particularly know what I am doing.

I'm intending my posts to chronicle my culinary endeavors in the CAP and beyond. When I'm not cooking or thinking about it, I am putting off exercise and reading celebrity gossi--er, Proust.