I’m a scholar and writer who helps others think more deeply and engage more meaningfully. I’ve appeared on BBC and NPR radio, PBS-UNCTV, Australia’s ABC, and Martha Stewart Living radio to talk about how everything from why food rituals tell us who we are to how to engage audiences through new media.

While finishing my Ph.D. dissertation on food, literature, and culture at the University of Chicago, I launched the Eat Feed podcast in 2005. The Boston Globe liked the “delightfully food-geeky segments." Saveur called it the "finest way to take your food on the road.” (The programs are now archived at iTunes.)

Next, I wrote a cookbook, Eat Feed Autumn Winter -- named one of Epicurious' Best Food Books.

Since then, I’ve written about food, culture, and literature for Saveur, the Washington Post, Cultures and Cuisines, and The Kitchn. For #shakespeare400, I created a week-long series on Shakespeare and food at NPR.

I have twenty years teaching and mentoring experience at the University of Chicago, University of Pittsburgh, Duke University, University of East Anglia, University of Pennsylvania’s Continuing Education, and Johns Hopkins’ Summer Programs' Center for Talented Youth. Now I use that experience to help others do more of the writing they love at Scholars & Writers Consulting.

I'm an American expat in Norwich UK, "City of Literature," and explain a little of why in my food and memory story.