BILL OF FARE

Need a writer? I’M YOUR GIRL.

(Especially when it comes to food.)

How about an editor? DING DONG, OPEN FOR BIZ.

(What’s your style? Webster’s, Food Lover’s, AP—have at it.)

Recipe developing, testing, editing, and ingredient sourcing? DONE IT AND LOVE IT.

Is your home or enterprise missing art? WELCOME! YOU CAN LEAVE YOUR SHOES ON.

(Wacky paper mache sculptures, drawing, painting, custom stamps)

I clean up niceLy. Here is my resume.

Where I’m From

Woodbridge, CT: the burbs of New Haven. Not much of a scene, but lots of free range and deer ticks. Drawing, tap dancing, piano, and drums were my small-town salvation.

In third grade, my writing got me noticed—by my third grade teacher, which felt as venerable as #viral. According to Ms. Reizfeld, I made it rain with my limericks about the rainforest and eventually landed downtown in the writing department at the ACES Educational Center for the Arts, where high school students from over 25 districts also studied. It led me to Middlebury’s Bread Loaf Writer’s Conference, to Miami for a YoungArts fellowship, Carnegie Hall for a Scholastic gold medal, a bunch of other stuff I thought would get me into Ivys, but didn’t.

I needed to wriggle a little more in the real world and spent a year in Jerusalem on an exchange program with the Bezalel Academy of Arts and Design. I was there to study fine art, but I found myself disappearing into the open-air markets more than painting. For the first time, I shopped for my own food, and became wrapped up in the local food hype. I dragged my granny cart down aisles of fruit stalls where hawkers barked about their bounties. I’d always loved eating, but here, I felt deeply connected to people through shared ingredients. All of Jerusalem cooked in harvest tempo.

I got out some shpilkes, but college called, and it wanted four years of my un-matriculated soul. Brandeis was a real shtetyl, though, so I found fellowships to explore a little more, and fixated on India. I assisted an architect in documenting the restoration of synagogues in Kerala, and then spent a summer in Varanasi to help create fundraising materials for a non-profit. I found a refuge from the sweltering streets in equally sweltering home kitchens, where I befriended local women to teach me how to cook. I crouched over tubs of roti dough, mixing my weight in wheat, fried onions and okra in mustard oil til my eyes watered, refilled yogurt and milk pails from vats strapped to a buffalo—and gained a lot of respect for the massive daily meal prep accomplished by Indian homemakers. It all tasted like love, and was some of the only food that didn’t give me food poisoning.

Back at Brandeis, though, I kept on the English and creative writing track. Still a woodland prancer and drummer, I started Brandeis Beats. I got campus to pay for dozens of drums we’d schlep to homeless shelters, schools, and festivals in Greater Boston. We’d drum and dance and forget about everything else for a while. Brandeis was a cozy bubble, and I wanted New York to pop it. I moved there in 2015. My resume and LinkedIn can tell you the bullet-point version of how I’ve swept around this dirty, dazzling town.

New York has everything, set to a pulse that pounds my temples and propels me. Writing, cooking, music, and art allow me to feast from the fray, then pause to let it all crystalize. This website is what I’ve strung together so far. I like being the string, and while the presentation might be a little rough here and there, your browsing eyes are the real pearls. I’m always looking for new collaborations, commissions, and creative opportunities. Feel free to reach out: alizagans at gmail dot com.