HAWF news & updates
March 2020
Hello Everyone -- How have you been doing?

I'm starting this month's newsletter with a heavy heart, both for the University and for the hospitality industry that is the common thread of our particular Shared Interest Group.

You've likely heard that Commencement services will be moved to a virtual format and President Bacow and his wife have tested positive for coronavirus . Personally I'm finding daily updates from the Harvard Gazette to be a useful source of information about University-wide efforts related to the crisis, from the School for Public Health to the Kennedy School to the Divinity School.

Meanwhile the food and wine industry (restaurants and wineries in particular) are trying to navigate this devastating downturn. The latest numbers? Up to seven million people laid off, and disaster relief and applications for emergency aid have become a sad part of our everyday language.

Today's newsletter intends, in no way, to gloss over the seriousness of this. In fact, I'd be grateful if you would share with me news and connections from within our community who are, as we say in the kitchen, "in the weeds." Just today, for example, I read this update (" Acknowledging this new reality ") from alum Eleanor Leger , owner of Eden Specialty Ciders in Vermont. Please have a look.

Thank you in advance for reaching out with news about our community.

There are, also, four items I'd like very much to share with you this month:

  • HAWF member and advocate Susan Novick, on the slate for election to Harvard's Board of Overseers
  • Our video feature this month takes us behind the scenes and inside the fascinating reality of alum Apollonia Poilâne in Paris.
  • Our featured book is The Invention of the Restaurant: Paris and Modern Gastronomic Culture by alum Rebecca L. Spang. Foreword by Adam Gopnik.
  • Petition information about a new SIG that's of interest to our community: Harvard Alumni for Climate and Environment.

Board of Overseer Election

Susan Novick, a long-time supporter and advocate for HAWF, has been nominated to serve on Harvard's Board of Overseers. You can read Susan's official bio and here, above and beyond her work in social impact investing and advocacy for women, are some food and wine things you may be interested to know: she was one of the first hires at The Food Network, writing and producing a restaurant travel show called Dining Around (later renamed Table for Two) with Alan Richman and Nina Griscom. Her team produced stories on hundreds of restaurants across the US and Canada during their three-year run.

Susan then became a food writer for the regional section of The New York Times and wrote a weekly column called “Quick Bites” for more than a decade, covering food and wine from Queens, NY to the Hamptons. She continues to write features for the Sunday Metropolitan section of the NY Times, focusing on food, travel and culture. Here are links to two of her pieces, about a chef-turned-snail-farmer and a restaurant review of a Jean-Georges Vongerichten restaurant on Fire Island.

A big obstacle for candidates is low voter turnout. Fortunately this year we can vote online, between April 1 and May 15. You can learn more about the election here , and here is a bit more information about what Harvard Overseers actually do.

Please vote!

Alum Video Feature: Apollonia Poilâne in Paris

Paris. Bread. Poilâne. Am I right??

This month I'm thrilled to share with you this video that Apollonia and her team created specifically for our community.

Apollonia has been d escribed as a “fierce defender of a magical tradition and also a brave innovator for a new era.” She inherited and now leads what is arguably Paris' most iconoclastic and celebrated bread bakery, overseeing 160+ men and women who operate the family's six locations in Paris and London, including another Harvard alum who staffs the online sales channel . Apollonia's new book ( Secrets of the World Famous Bakery ) was released late last year.

Here is the link to the video on Vimeo . You'll need a password, which is HAWFPoilane. It's got history (think St. Germain-des-Prés eighty years ago), commentary on the current situation around COVID-19 in Paris, pro tips about bread at home, her latest project on grains and sablés, some thoughts on wine (Burgundy!) and bread, and an invitation to visit Paris when the time comes.

Enjoy!!


I'd wanted to feature Rebecca's book since before the coronavirus hit and now, just a few weeks in, it feels like a particularly poignant recommendation. Start with this, from the back cover:

"Why are there restaurants? Why would anybody consider eating alongside perfect strangers in a loud and crowded room to be an enjoyable pastime? To find the answer, Rebecca Spang takes us back to France in the eighteenth century, when a restaurant was not a palce to eat but a quasi-medicinal bouillon not unlike the bone broths of today."

I'd be very interested in your thoughts around, perhaps, a virtual book club meeting that features Rebecca's book with, naturally, her live perspective as the author and in-house expert. What do you think?

New SIG: Harvard Alumni for Climate and Environment

A certain number of signatures are necessary to establish any new Shared Interest Group. Timothy M. Parent is heading up this effortf you'd like to sign the petition for yourself, please visit this link or contact Timothy directly .


Signing off for now, friends. Please be in touch with your news, thoughts and ideas.

Thank you for reading, and take good care --

Warm regards,
Cathy Huyghe

Phone: +1.702.528.3717