Some people say that the most valuable lessons in college are those that you learn outside of the classroom.  In this case, we'd have to agree.  At Williams College, the Zilkha Center for Environmental Initiatives promotes sustainability beyond the classroom, and Katharine leads the crusade from the food front. It may have been a winding road to gastronomic glory, but Katharine has learned - like all of us - that food is connected to everything.  See how she puts her skills in social anthropology, international development, and ethno-botany to good use with her good food job.

What attracted you to a good food job?

My incentive has always been to unite my avocations and my vocation. Food was never positioned as a career choice for me; it has always just been what my whole being gravitated towards. Food is both material and immaterial. I loved that through the lens of food I could interrelate everything!   In my current role at Williams College I yearn to offer a deeply enriching and exciting forum in which to inspire other young people to choose to work with food if they feel called to  - through a multi-disciplinary approach to sustainability and through a combination of grounded practical experience and intellectual questioning.  My vision is to foster in future generations a passion for responsible environmental stewardship and the rediscovery of vital food.
I see my small part in the brave new good food world as one of a pollinator. I like to connect ideas and people and do well in roles that encourage that. I have great respect for chefs and I love to cook simple food myself. What's a 'straight chef'? The act of transforming raw materials into cooked ones automatically involves a chef within greater dialogues. I admire the platform of the kitchen from which creativity with cuisine can blossom with high quality ingredients.

It is my hope that my delight in the colour and craftsmanship of contextual cuisine serve to re-connect people, through eating and cooking, with the pleasures of the table and the farm. A robust future of food will take collaboration and diverse voices. For me the conversation about food doesn't start or stop with the environmental issues; cultural parameters and roots must inform our choices too.

How did your previous work or life experience prepare you for a good food job?

I have learned the most about good food through traveling and exploring ethno-botany, land use, national identity and spirituality through the lens of food.  As a native New Yorker, I grew up eating food from all corners of the world and from a young age I set out to explore their origins first hand.  I was a '07 Fulbright Fellow to Italy, where I conducted research on traditional agriculture and food production, and simultaneously gained an M.A. in Food Culture and Communications with the University of Gastronomic Sciences, founded by Slow Food International. My Fulbright grant brought me to farms across the Northern Mediterranean and the United States and fed my love for heritage grains, wild greens and honey.  I have spent a lot of time with farmers, gardeners,  cooks and food producers in action, so to speak, with my hands in the soil and my fingers in many pots. Yum.

I also hold a BA from the University of London, SOAS in Social Anthropology and International Development. The many hours I spent in London's food markets were really a formative container of inquiry for me; I will never accede that the UK has bad food.  I lived for a year in a caravan on an organic farm in Somerset and we ate gloriously. I regularly had pheasants strung up outside my door.

What advice do you have for others in search of a good food job?

Though it has not been my particular path, the advice I have is to root down in one place and get specific. Undertake a fine study.  Learn something or a process very well. Then you can speak from the heart about it.  There is always time to broaden out and add in knowledge.  For the students I work with, my usual advice is to go work on a farm for at least a year. Learn the soil, the ancestors, the elements, the discipline of labour, and then screw your head back on. We need ' intellectuals of the land', but we also need to be more grounded and focused through increased sensorial education. Let the land be the teacher.

I have, however, written hundreds of cover letters over the years. I have attended many conferences and made it a point to meet many people. The resulting web of relationships has proven these to have been valuable exercises. It would appear that one has to throw out many balls and then just observe which ones roll back. Which one does is usually surprising.

If you could be compensated for your work with something other than money, what would it be?

Tricky question, because I want to say that it is important for good food people to be compensated accordingly. The idea of value in general, and especially how we value food, needs to be reworked. We are just coming into that time of abundance for good food jobs.

Thoreau said, "If we will be quiet and ready enough, we shall find compensation in every disappointment." That seems applicable to fighting the good food fight. That said, I wouldn't be disappointed by a pay package that included a lifetime of global food adventures and a sweet homestead with a garden by a river.