CO-FOUNDERS & CO-DIRECTORS

BOARD OF DIRECTORS

LINDA CARUCCI, M.Ed., is an award-winning culinary instructor and cookbook author based in the San Francisco Bay Area. In 2002, her peers in the International Association of Culinary Professionals (IACP) voted her Cooking Teacher of the Year. She is the author of Cooking School Secrets for Real World Cooks (Chronicle Books, 2005), which was honored as a finalist for the IACP’s Julia Child First Book Award and for a James Beard Cookbook Award. After serving as the first Julia Child Director of Culinary Programs at COPIA: The American Center for Wine, Food & the Arts, Linda assumed responsibilities as chef director of The International Culinary School at The Art Institute of California - San Francisco, overseeing the launch of a new culinary arts training program scheduled to begin in Spring 2008.

RANDY CHUNG, graduated from The Ohio State University with an accounting degree. His first job in high school was at Wendy’s flipping burgers, and by senior year he had moved on to another great love - making donuts. While in the Peace Corps, Randy spent two years in Senegal, West Africa, teaching Small Business Enterprise Development while learning to make proper Senegalese tea. Since then, he has worked in many restaurants, and was even a server at the Commander's Palace in New Orleans before becoming their accountant. He is an avid cook and has traveled extensively, especially in Southeast Asia, with his trusty bicycle. Currently, Randy keeps the books in order at Le Colonial in San Francisco.

JEANNETTE FERRARY is the author of six cookbooks, a biography of M.F.K. Fisher and the memoir, Out of the Kitchen: Adventures of a Food Writer. She teaches food writing at Stanford University and U. C. Berkeley. A market development consultant for food associations and commodity boards, she founded and directed promotion and public relations firms in Minneapolis and California and has worked for the International Center for Tropical Agriculture in Bogota, Colombia. As west coast reporter for The New York Times, she has written widely on the developing California culinary scene. She has contributed to Gastronomica, the Journal of Gastronomy, Antioch Review, Gourmet magazine, and the San Francisco Chronicle among many others.

JOYCE JUE is a writer and culinary consultant who specializes in Asian food and culture. An internationally recognized authority on Chinese and Southeast Asian cuisines, she won the 2001 IACP Best International Cookbook Award for her cookbook, Savoring Southeast Asia (Williams-Sonoma/Time Life Books, 2000). Raised in San Francisco Chinatown, Joyce leads special tours of her old neighborhood. She is currently board president of the San Francisco Professional Food Society and a board member of the Asian Chefs Association.

NILOUFER ICHAPORIA KING, Ph.D., is an independent scholar interested in tropical food plants and cuisines. She is the author of the acclaimed cookbook, My Bombay Kitchen: Traditional and Modern Parsi Home Cooking (University of California Press, 2007) for which she won the James Beard award for best book in Asian cooking. Niloufer has contributed to the Journal of Gastronomy, Fine Cooking, The Slow Food Guide to San Francisco and the Bay Area, and Cultural Survival Quarterly.

SYLVIA LEE, M.B.A., is a food and travel enthusiast with a marketing day job. She oversees marketing for Jaman.com, a global website community for movie fans. Prior to Jaman, Sylvia spent over six years building business divisions at Travelocity, where she lead the team that built a packaging platform business unit which has helped more than one million travelers build a complete trip, and as director, segment and niche marketing, she also led strategy teams on emerging business opportunities. Previous to Travelocity, she was senior director, product marketing at Allbusiness.com and was at the forefront of the Internet while at Netscape in the new business department in the mid-late 1990s. Earlier in her career, Sylvia was a brand consultant for Bailey & Associates in Miami, and also served as a trade analyst for the U.S. Consulate in Montreal.

LINDA LIM (Board President), M.A., began to travel throughout Asia while studying political science at the University of Chicago. Her travels fed her love of Asian food and culture, and then spawned her more than fourteen-year career in sales/marketing and business development, which includes a six-year tenure in hi-tech and another six years in the financial services industry. Linda has worked for The Gap’s international division and for Oracle, for which she was based in Singapore in order to cover a territory of thirteen countries across the Asia Pacific region. Linda currently oversees the Signature product strategy for Visa, U.S.A. where she pours her epicurean interests into developing and managing national food-and-wine events and dining programs for Visa’s premium credit card holders.

LOUISE LEVI is the founder and proprietor of LOMA Consulting, specializing in business development and contract administrative services. Having received her J.D. from the University of California, Hastings Law School, Louise has been a licensed attorney in California since 1989.

ERICA J. PETERS, Ph.D., is a food historian and the founder/director of the Culinary Historians of Northern California. She received her bachelor’s degree in history and literature from Harvard University (1991) and her doctorate in history from the University of Chicago (2000). She has taught at Stanford University, Santa Clara University, and San Francisco State University. Erica has published articles on the history of Vietnamese food and drink in the Journal of Vietnamese Studies, French Historical Studies, the Social History of Alcohol and Drugs, and French Colonial History, and has presented at numerous conferences across the United States and abroad. She is currently finishing a book manuscript on the politics of food and drink in nineteenth-century Vietnam.

CINDY MENDOZA’s food enthusiasm began with her mother’s Filipino home cooking and then blossomed during her work with small-scale family farmers and her independent travels. She has facilitated cooking demonstrations at the Ferry Building Farmers Market with the Center for Urban Education about Sustainable Agriculture and Far West Fungi. She earned her bachelor’s degree in Design of the Environment from the University of Pennsylvania and studied architecture, planning and historic preservation in New York and Parisat Columbia University. Cindy is a non-profit community development professional with a focus on affordable housing and workforce development and cultural education. She was recently board president of San Francisco City Guides and currently works at Glide Foundation.

PATRICE SAVERY, M.A. spent her formative years living overseas in Hong Kong, Thailand, Costa Rica, and Saudi Arabia where her father was in the Foreign Service. While seated at tables around the world, she gained an appreciation for food and culture, and her exposure to a multitude of fresh ingredients ignited her passion for cooking. Patrice has extensive experience in marketing and event management, but her foray into the food industry began in 2003 when she received a culinary arts degree at Seattle Culinary Academy. In 2006 she earned a master’s degree in food studies at New York University focusing on issues of healthy eating among children. Currently Patrice is the Corporate Marketing Manager at Bon Appétit Management Company where she promotes corporate initiatives on healthful eating and sustainability.

ADVISORY BOARD

ANITA DHARAPURAM, MNA, simply enjoys food. She thrives on trying new ethnic restaurants, especially taste-testing new South Asian places. As Director of Programs at Creating Economic Opportunities for Women (C.E.O. Women), Anita helps low-income immigrant and refugee women learn entrepreneurial skills in order to open their own small businesses. She earned her Master's in Nonprofit Administration from the University of San Francisco focusing on the overall success and feasibility of programs in the nonprofit sector. Anita has worked at CompassPoint Nonprofit Services, served on the board of Kearny Street Workshop and was a collective member of OY! Organizing Youth.

LIEN HO-LIN, born in Hong Kong as the second eldest of seven children, started her culinary career at the age of eight washing dishes and folding wontons in her family’s restaurant in upstate New York. She also worked as a hostess and server in family restaurants in Los Angeles. Lien studied public policy, management and planning at the University of Southern California, but decided to follow her true passion for the culinary arts, graduating from the California Culinary Academy in 2003. She started her professional culinary career at the renowned Slanted Door restaurant as an extern and worked her way up to line cook, kitchen manager and special events/catering manager. Lien has been directly involved with opening Out The Door, The Slanted Door’s sister restaurant at various locations. She has assisted with recipe development and has contributed recipes representing The Slanted Door to Bon Appetit, Gourmet and Food Art magazines.

ALEXANDER ONG, born and raised in Malaysia, apprenticed at the Shangri La Hotel in Kuala Lumpur for four years before coming to United States. Recruited by the Ritz Carlton Buckhead in Georgia, he has traveled throughout the United States working on assignments for the company. In 1995, he moved to San Francisco where he worked with Chef Jeremiah Tower at Stars for three years. Though he was trained in classical French cooking, he decided to return to his Asian roots and opened Le Colonial’s kitchen and then Xanadu in Berkeley, where in 2000 he was named Rising Star Chef by the San Francisco Chronicle. Currently Alex is the executive chef & managing partner of Betelnut Pejiu Wu in San Francisco.

ROBYNN TAKAYAMA, is an award-winning radio producer. In addition to filing for National Public Radio outlets, she contributed to Crossing East, the Peabody-awarded radio documentary on Asian American history. Her video and gallery installations addressing issues like geography, mental health, and patriotism have shown in Los Angeles, Chicago and the San Francisco Bay Area. Robynn sits on the board of directors of the Association of Independents in Radio, and she is a graduate of and guest teacher at the KPFA First Voice Apprenticeship program. With regards to food, Robynn is proud of her uncle who managed a store in Hawaii that boasted the highest sale of spam in the country, prompting a visit from Mr. Hormel.

CO-DIRECTORS

1. Andrea Nguyen (Viet World Kitchen)
   

2. Thy Tran (Wandering Spoon)
   

BOARD OF DIRECTORS

1. Linda Lim (Board President), VISA Signature
   

2. Linda Carucci, International Culinary School at the Art Institutes-CA
   

3. Randy Chung, Le Colonial Restaurant
   

4. Jeannette Ferrary, Out of the Kitchen: Adventures of a Food Writer
   

5. Joyce Jue, Asian Food & Travel
   

6. Niloufer Ichaporia King, My Bombay Kitchen
   

7. Sylvia Lee, Jaman.com
   

8. Louise Levi, LOMA Consulting
   

9. Cindy Mendoza, Glide Foundation
   

10. Erica J. Peters, Culinary Historians of Northern California
    

11. Patrice Savery, Bon Appetit Management
    
    

ADVISORY BOARD

1. Anita Dharapuram, C.E.O. Women
   

2. Alexander Ong, Betelnut Pejiu Wu
   

3. Robynn Takayama, Nonogirl Radio
   

ABOUT US

The Asian Culinary Forum is a 501(c)3 tax-exempt nonprofit organization powered entirely by volunteers. Two directors lead the efforts, guided by a dedicated board of directors and an expert advisory board. Find out more about each of us below.

© 2008 Asian Culinary Forum