Ramin Ganeshram

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Ramin Ganeshram
Ramin011810.jpg
Born (1968-06-21) June 21, 1968 (age 57)
New York City, U.S.
OccupationFood Writer, Novelist, Nonprofit executive
EducationInstitute of Culinary Education
Alma mater Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism
SpouseJean Paul Vellotti (photojournalist)

Ramin Ganeshram (born June 21, 1968 [1] ) is an American food journalist, novelist, and nonprofit executive. She is known for her work in polycultural American history and historic foodways.

Contents

Early life and education

Ganeshram was born in New York City to a Trinidadian father of Indian descent and an Iranian mother. She attended Stuyvesant High School of Science and earned a master's degree in journalism from Columbia University, both in Manhattan. Later she trained at the Institute of Culinary Education, [2] also in New York City. She later worked there as a chef instructor.

Journalism career

In addition to contributing to a variety of major food publications, Ganeshram is the author of several cookbooks. She was a reporter and writer on Molly O'Neill's book One Big Table (Simon & Schuster 2010).

Ganeshram has received multiple awards for food writing, a nomination by the International Association of Culinary Professionals for a Bert Greene award in culinary journalism, and Cookbook of the Year Award. [3]

In January 2010, she founded the charity Food 4 Haiti, [4] to raise money for the UN World Food Programme's effort in the earthquake ravaged Haiti.

Novelist

Ganeshram's first work of fiction, Stir It Up!, [5] focuses on a teen chef who gets a shot at cooking competition show on Food Network. Ganeshram has appeared on Food Network on the show Throwdown! with Bobby Flay; she has also appeared on CNNfn, Good Day New York, and other news and lifestyle shows for both radio and television. [6]

In 2018, Ganeshram published The General's Cook: A Novel (Skyhorse, NY), about Hercules Posey, the African-American chef enslaved by George Washington who self-emancipated in 1797. In early 2019, Craig LaBan of the Philadelphia Inquirer reported that Ganeshram and her Westport Historical Society colleague Sara Krasne uncovered compelling evidence that year suggesting Hercules, who had never been seen again after 1801, in fact had lived for years in New York City. He was recorded to have died there on May 15, 1812. [7] Their discovery offered scholarship on Hercules—including his surname—that earned Ganeshram and the Museum praise from historians at Mount Vernon and the writer/historian Professor Erica Armstrong Dunbar. Her work focused on Oney Judge, a woman enslaved by the Washington family, who left the household in Philadelphia and lived free in New Hampshire.

Nonprofit director

Since 2018, Ganeshram has been the executive director of Westport Museum for History & Culture (formerly Westport Historical Society) [8] [ better source needed ] in Westport, Connecticut. She has emphasized an inclusive history, representative of people of color, immigrants, women, and the LGBTQ community. In 2018-19 she curated the exhibit "Remembered: The History of African Americans in Westport", that revealed the history of enslavement and racial injustice toward African Americans in the Fairfield County, Connecticut town. Artifacts in the exhibit include "shackles and a reconstructed crawl space where two girls, household slaves, might have slept." [9] The exhibit gained the museum awards from the Connecticut League of History Organizations, American Association for State & Local History, and the New England Museum Association.

See also

References

  1. "Happy Birthday To Westport's Ramin Ganeshram". Westport Daily Voice. 2014-06-21. Retrieved 2021-04-06.
  2. "Unique Culinary Careers: Ramin Ganeshram | DICED: The Official Blog of ICE". Blog.iceculinary.com. Retrieved 2012-10-06.
  3. "Archived copy" (PDF). Archived from the original (PDF) on 2015-06-10. Retrieved 2015-06-10.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: archived copy as title (link)
  4. "Food 4 Haiti Westporter organizes event with help of 50 food celebs - Thehour.com: Arts And Life". Thehour.com. 2010-01-27. Archived from the original on 2013-02-04. Retrieved 2012-10-06.
  5. Ganeshram, Ramin (2011). Stir it up! : a novel (1st ed.). New York: Scholastic. ISBN   978-0-545-16582-2. OCLC   694833021.
  6. "Bobby Flay loses spicy chicken wing throwdown to Colette Burnett of Super Wings NY". November 2010. Retrieved 28 March 2018.
  7. George Washington's slave chef, who cooked in Philadelphia, disappears from painting, but may have reappeared in New York
  8. "Westport Museum for History and Culture" . Retrieved 2022-01-24.
  9. Lang, Joel (2019-03-15). "Study of slavery in Westport hits home for both author and readers". Connecticut Post. Archived from the original on 2020-10-29. Retrieved 2021-04-06.