A message from the Editor in Chief

Culinarian is a new adventure into the world of student publishing and the culinary arts.  Culinarian aims to be a resource for the students of Columbia University, each issue guided by a specific theme.  Students will be able to view issues online for free, retrieving favorite recipes or suggestions for great restaurants.  Each issue of Culinarian will be a mini-encyclopedia of food and drink knowledge to help the students of the University be expert foodies.

In my application to Columbia, I described my dreams of eating pizza at 3am, hot oatmeal with blueberries from the farmer’s market for breakfast, gourmet mac’n’cheese from a LES cafe for lunch, and ordering Indian takeout with friends for dinner.  This was my food dream for my college career.  When I arrived on campus in August 2010, I was struck by the similarity my food dream had to that all of my peers.  Almost everyone I’ve met at this university has shown a passion for food.  For some, it’s developing intricate quinoa recipes in their dorm kitchen.  For others, it’s finding the clubs with the most elaborate drinks and candied nuts. For most, it’s discovering the quintessential coffee shop for reading and meeting someone cute.  No matter the student, everyone has a vision of the food scene that they hope to embrace when they choose a program at Columbia University.

We as students have the time and the passion to take the extra subway trip or cab ride to a new restaurant.  We are willing to traverse neighborhoods and boroughs we’ve never seen before to find the best dim sum.  We scrawl down the addresses of places our friends recommend, embark with visiting parents to find the perfect meal in a city of millions of possibilities.

I believe Culinarian can and will be a resource for students, a consistently high quality production that covers everything from restaurant reviews, recipes, app suggestions, grocery store comparisons, useful lists (like the 5 utensils you should really have in college), farmer’s market guides, and more.  I see the passion in my fellow students, but sometimes they’re at a loss for finding ways to tackle the Big Apple.  Even I struggle to pick the right outing or the right vegetables.  I too will learn from the pages of Culinarian as the staff, a group of new friends and old, develops exciting and effective features covering the food life of university students.

My newest food dream, as you might have guessed, is Culinarian.  I hope it becomes yours, too.

Amanda Tien