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COLUMBIA
SUMMER 2017
COLUMBIA MAGAZINE
MAG AZ I N E
TURNINGTHE
TURNING THEPAGE
PAGE
SUMMER 2017
THE JUSTICE-IN-EDUCATION
What happens when Columbia INITIATIVE
brings
OPENS MINDS BEHIND
education behindBARS
bars?
PRESENTING THE CLASS OF 2017
The penny loafer graduates to greatness. Ivy Legend. Handcrafted in Portugal.
Free shipping and returns. Order online or call 844.482.4800.
SUMMER 2017
PAGE
28 CONTENTS
FEATURES
14
SUPPER CLUB
By Rebecca Shapiro
New York Times food writer
Melissa Clark ’90BC, ’94SOA
invites everyone to the table
20
OPENING MINDS
BEHIND BARS
By James S. Kunen ’70CC
What happens when you bring
college classes to incarcerated
men and women?
28
A LIFE IN COMICS
THE GRAPHIC ADVENTURES
OF KAREN GREEN ’97GSAS
By Nick Sousanis ’14TC
How a Butler librarian became
Columbia’s first curator for
comics and cartoons
34
A LEAGUE OF HER OWN
By Paul Hond
Sharon Robinson ’76NRS
delivers on her father’s legacy
38
BOLD IDEAS, REAL IMPACT
By Sally Lee
A Q&A with President Lee C.
NICK SOUSANIS
Bollinger on turning academic
breakthroughs into solutions
COLUMBIA SUMMER 2017 1
CONTENTS COLUMBIA MAGAZ I N E
DEPARTMENTS
Executive Vice President,
3 University Development & Alumni Relations
Amelia Alverson
LETTERS
Deputy Vice President for Strategic Communications
8 Jerry Kisslinger ’79CC, ’82GSAS
COLLEGE WALK
Room with a View \ The Short List \
Disturbing the Peace \ Intelligent Designs \ Editor in Chief
No-Spin Zone \ Counting Van Dorens Sally Lee
Art Director
44 Jeffrey Saks
EXPLORATIONS
Managing Editor
Painkiller abuse now a global scourge \
Rebecca Shapiro
The future of data storage is in our DNA \
New app to help diabetics \ Medical Senior Editors
David J. Craig, Paul Hond
breakthrough could increase supply of donor PAGE
organs \ How Citizens United changed 38 Copy Chief
Joshua J. Friedman ’08JRN
our politics \ The rove beetles’ magical
mystery lure \ Deep beneath the Dead Sea, Assistant to the Editor
Julia Joy
a harbinger of future drought \ Gut bacteria
linked to chronic fatigue syndrome \ Painted Editorial Assistant
by Mr. Robot \ Study Hall Catherine Elizabeth Hernandez
50
NETWORK Director of Digital Strategy
Gwynne Gauntlett
New York through New Eyes \ Ask an Alum \
Butterfly Effect \ Newsmakers Director for Marketing Research
Linda Ury Greenberg
54
Director for Strategic Marketing and Communications
BULLETIN Tracy Quinn ’14SPS
University news and views
PAGE
58 10
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A Midsummer Night’s Read © 2017 by the Trustees of Columbia University
in the City of New York
PAGE
34
FOLLOW US
/ColumbiaMag @columbiamag COVER: JAMES STEINBERG
2 COLUMBIA SUMMER 2017
LETTERS
21ST CENTURY
CAMPUS
I attended Columbia in the
early-to-mid-seventies, when
New York City was experi-
encing difficult times. I loved
entering the Morningside
campus. It was like stepping
into another world — peace-
Renzo Piano appears to
envision his Manhattanville
campus as a kind of public
amusement park. Time will
tell how that works out,
but there’s no question that
his view of Morningside is
a modernist’s opinion and
debatable accordingly.
‘‘
that the proposed gym, often
described as having a
second-class “backdoor” for
the Harlem community, was
the trigger for Columbia’s 1968
rebellion. I hopefully note that
Columbia is not repeating the
errors of the 1960s.
Henry W. Rosenberg ’73CC
ROARING
NINETIES
Thank you for the
lovely profile of
the remarkable
nonagenarian
David Perlman.
May I suggest
you devote an
equally inspiring
article in each
issue to others in
this age bracket?
Hagith Sivan ’83GSAS
Philadelphia, PA
ful, noble, and filled with If McKim’s Morningside Northampton, MA
knowledge. To this day, I’ve is “intimidating,” so was
never perceived it as closed Penn Station. Intriguing is While Columbia’s Morning-
off or gated. It’s a traditional more like it. Exploring the side campus features some
campus inspired by classi- campus as a New York City undeniably beautiful architec-
cal architecture in a vibrant high-school kid, I remember ture, its insular, fortress-like
urban setting. thinking, “I’ve got to go here.” design, devoid of interaction
I also like Renzo Piano’s John F. G. Leighton ’52CC with the street, has always
concept for the Manhattan- Redondo Beach, CA left the neighborhood with a
ville campus — open and windswept, vacant feel.
accessible to everybody Renzo Piano stresses that The new Manhattanville
(“Manhattanville,” Spring there “will be no clear bound- campus is certainly a step in
2017). But I do question ary” between the University the right direction: Renzo
whether its utopian openness and the city. He reminds me Piano’s design features publicly
might hit the hard wall of of what Jane Jacobs wrote accessible buildings on an
reality, given the intensely in her 1961 masterpiece open street grid. But missing
urban environment and the The Death and Life of Great from all the beautiful render-
neighborhood. But these American Cities: “Columbia ings (and explicitly promised
things can be addressed University in New York is in early conversations about
pragmatically with time. taking a constructive step the campus) is ground-floor
Having two nearby campus by planning sports facilities commercial space. We see
locations, one traditional and — for both the university lobbies and quads that say
one contemporary, could be and the neighborhood — in “students welcome,” but
the best of both worlds. Morningside Park, which nowhere are restaurants, cafés
James Bruno ’74SIPA has been shunned and feared and shops that say “neighbor-
Cazenovia, NY for decades.” The irony is hood residents welcome.”
COLUMBIA SUMMER 2017 3
LETTERS
This is a real shame. don’t know how Columbia The new buildings that
Ground-floor retail and din- became what it is today — “adorn” our campus, as well
ing would provide vibrancy between Nicholas Murray as the proposed ones, are
and foot traffic at all hours of Butler and whoever gave the all neo-modern, ugly, and
the day and night, long after money for the new neurosci- conceived without regard to
labs and classrooms have ence center. Surely, Colum- the old-fashioned but beau-
emptied out. Just as import- bia has produced artists, tiful and timeless existing
ant, these shops and cafés scientists, politicians, leaders campus. The interiors are
would provide employment — graduates — whom you cold, aseptic, and without any
opportunities for local resi- could exalt? pretense of being warm and
dents. What good is a publicly Sarah White ’71BC, ’73JRN comfortable. Is this how we
accessible campus with no Williamstown, MA carry on the amazing legacy
place for the public? of Columbia University?
Munier Salem ’15GSAS The Spring 2017 issue of Leo Glass ’56CC
Brooklyn, NY Columbia Magazine proved Monticello, NY López Rivera, a Puerto Rican
to be the best in recent terrorist who attempted to
The Manhattanville campus memory in content, style, and Given the Trump adminis- bring about independence for
will offer retail, restaurants, presentation. Certainly, the tration’s proposed cutbacks Puerto Rico. The fact is that
and services for both the coverage of the Manhattan- in the funding of medical the US has offered indepen-
campus and the local ville project was a dominant and energy research, it seems dence to Puerto Rico several
community. For example, factor; it was undoubtedly timely to ask what contin- times, and the electorate has
the Jerome L. Greene Science spectacular in concept and gency plans Columbia has overwhelmingly rejected it
Center’s ground-floor corridor implementation. made to prevent the new — and with good reason.
will house a restaurant, a The Zuckerman Mind Manhattanville campus from Becoming an independent
café, an indoor climbing Brain Behavior Institute, becoming a costly white ele- nation would bring with it
facility, and a community with its emphasis on inter- phant. If research faculty can- significant losses, not least of
wellness center. The education disciplinary collaboration, not secure grant money, who which would be the right to
lab there is already open and particularly piqued my in- will occupy the new buildings American citizenship, which
giving local students hands- terest. It reminded me of our and pay for their upkeep? allows Puerto Ricans to travel
on experience in science. —Ed. Philosophy Hall seminars Peter Feibelman ’63CC freely to the continental US
a half-dozen decades ago Albuquerque, NM and back, and work without
A simple map of Morningside dealing with the “mind-body visas, documents, or green
Heights and Manhattanville problem.” I hope the current PR STRATEGY cards. Mark-Viverito’s career
would have given your read- Columbia philosophical Your laudatory article about in New York would likely have
ers some notion of where the fraternity will be welcome at New York City Council been difficult, if not impos-
new buildings will fit into the Manhattanville to share in Speaker Melissa Mark- sible, if she had had to deal
current landscape. As it is, their own way. Viverito (“Speaking Up,” with immigration issues.
there are many fanciful draw- William J. Bonville ’51GSAS Spring 2017) mentions that Robert Reimers ’61SEAS
ings, with no demonstration Grants Pass, OR she advocated for Oscar Gardner, KS
of how and where they’ll be
secured to terra firma.
Separately, although past KEY TO ABBREVIATIONS
University presidents and CODE SCHOOL CODE SCHOOL
BC Barnard College NRS School of Nursing
most graduates don’t donate BUS Graduate School of Business OPT School of Optometry
enough money to get their CC Columbia College PH Mailman School of Public Health
names on buildings, was DM College of Dental Medicine PHRM School of Pharmaceutical Sciences
GS School of General Studies PS College of Physicians and Surgeons
there any thought given to GSAPP Graduate School of Architecture, SEAS Fu Foundation School of Engineering and
naming a new structure after Planning, and Preservation Applied Science
GSAS Graduate School of Arts and Sciences SIPA School of International and Public Affairs
McGill, Sovern, Bollinger, HON (Honorary degree) SOA School of the Arts
Eisenhower, or Obama? JRN Graduate School of Journalism SPS School of Professional Studies
JTS Jewish Theological Seminary SW School of Social Work
You’re condemning twenty- KC King’s College TC Teachers College
first-century students to LAW School of Law UTS Union Theological Seminary
historical amnesia if they LS School of Library Service
4 COLUMBIA SUMMER 2017
BANNER YEAR
I remembered the most
important answers to your
quiz about Columbia’s first
coed graduating class (Finals,
Spring 2017) — that the 1987
valedictorian, salutatorian, and
president were all women, and
that the class was 45 percent
women — because I’ve repeat-
ed these facts countless times
to demonstrate Columbia’s
PUBLIC OPINION Britain. The fact that ask the 1950s, there were some commitment to coed educa-
Regarding the debate over became standard is just an in each department. I believe tion after two hundred years
where on the Morningside accident. Black people say I was the only woman grad- of single-sex admissions, and
campus to install Henry aks because slaves worked on uating in electrical engineer- to express admiration for the
Moore’s abstract sculpture plantations with people who ing in 1958. righteous ways women took
Reclining Figure (“Angle of said aks, that’s all.” Better late Suzanne Palocz ’58SEAS their rightful place on campus.
Repose,” College Walk, Spring than never, and thank you! Cranbury, NJ I’ve also repeated the story
2017), good luck teaching stu- Robert D. Wagman ’81PS of how someone apparently
dents who think it improper Toronto, Ontario TOUGH LOVE gained access to the roof of
to place a contemporary Judging from the interview Butler Library and unfurled
sculpture in a neoclassical As a veteran of Professor “Weighty Matters” (The Big a banner to compete with
setting. That’s been done all Emeritus Charles V. Hamil- Idea, Spring 2017), Michael the frieze of all-male writers
over the world. ton’s Black Political Science Rosenbaum has made (Herodotus, Sophocles, Plato,
Also, be concerned about class and a former member impressive contributions to Aristotle, et al.) — this one of
the willingness of students to of Manhattan Community obesity research and edu- all-female writers (including,
sign a petition for almost any- Board 9, I applaud and cation. But I wonder if the if memory serves, Sappho, Sor
thing. Here at Pitt-Johnstown, support the reasoning you good doctor may be allowing Juana Inés de la Cruz, Brontë,
about a third of the student present in the Spring 2017 his benign nature to displace and Dickinson). I believe the
body signed a petition to issue for capitalizing the letter the sterner counsel that is Spectator ran a photo. Brilliant!
defund the student newspaper “B” in “Black.” Thank you for needed to fight this hugely
UNIVERSITY ARCHIVES, RARE BOOK AND MANUSCRIPT LIBRARY, COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY IN THE CITY OF NEW YORK
Clyde Moneyhun ’76CC
because it publishes the your journalistic courage destructive disease. When Boise, ID
campus crime report. and integrity. asked “What would you tell
George Fattman ’64JRN P.S. The Spring 2017 issue a relative who needed to lose For your enjoyment, we’re
Johnstown, PA is among the best — if not the weight?” Rosenbaum answers reprinting the photo you
best — I’ve read in the past that it’s not the person’s fault: remember, from September
TALKING BLACK forty years. being overweight is a biolog- 1989, above. The banner
As a Columbia medical Richard Sussman ’76CC ical disease, so by inference, was the handiwork of Laura
student in the late 1970s Nyack, NY blame is unwarranted. Hotchkiss Brown ’89GS. —Ed.
and early 1980s, it drove me I agree that it’s desirable to
crazy when my Black patients COED BEFORE avoid needlessly injuring an understanding when we see
would say, “Hey, doc, can I aks COEDUCATION afflicted person’s feelings, but (as I have) a mother feed
you a question?” Now, more It is worth noting that while I think we are still obliged her five-year-old Pop-Tarts
than three decades later, I the College graduated its to raise public awareness and Coca-Cola for break-
learn the reason in the spring first coeducational class of unhealthy behavior, and fast. We should not react
issue of Columbia Magazine. only thirty years ago, the to strongly urge individuals only with tolerance when a
In “English in Black and engineering school was coed to take some responsibility young man gorges himself
White” (Booktalk), linguist long before (Finals, Spring for what they do to them- till his weight triples and
John McWhorter explains, 2017). Although not many selves and their kin. We he succumbs to diabetes and
“Aks and ask are both from women chose engineering in ought not to be purely heart disease.
COLUMBIA SUMMER 2017 5
LETTERS
What needs to be done? not met the academic, social, run to Asia for design and BINGE WORTHY
We’ve seen that, to some or moral standards it has manufacturing? Was there Columbia Magazine has
degree, health authorities and established to protect both its any effort to find those ser- become a must-read end to
doctors have been effective reputation and the safety of vices right here in the USA? end, with no skipping! Thank
in discouraging smoking. its student body. Roger Rhodes ’96BUS you for what has become
Surely they must do the same Columbia’s president, New York, NY an exciting and inspiring
and more about “weighty its faculty, its student body, publication. It makes me
matters.” Perhaps Rosenbaum and the editors of its mag- Kudos for Steph Korey’s proud to be an alumna. I am
will agree that to mount an azine should recognize the success with Away bags. I halfway through the Spring
effective campaign against difference between rights am wondering, though, if 2017 issue and had to get up
obesity, we need tough love as and privileges. the built-in battery on the to write this, to offer kudos
well as sympathy. Avrum Hyman ’54JRN carry-on models creates an to what I am sure is a very
Irwin Shishko ’51GSAS Bronx, NY issue when there is no over- hardworking team.
Delray Beach, FL head space and the bag must Christine Welker ’89CC
BAGGAGE CHARGE go into the belly of the plane. Rhinebeck, NY
TRUMP AND I applaud Steph Korey and Aren’t lithium-ion batteries
IMMIGRATION Jen Rubio on their success disallowed there? I just read the Spring 2017
While I’m not surprised that with a clever idea to redesign Bob Fately ’82BUS issue and truly couldn’t put it
students and the liberal-left luggage with the needs of Las Cruces, MN down — so many well-written
faculties of many otherwise modern travelers in mind, and fascinating articles!
learned universities took including a built-in phone The folks at Away tell us Bravo for a job well done.
part in the attacks against charger (“From Bags to that their battery complies Jennifer Lawson ’74SOA
President Donald Trump Riches,” Network, Spring with all FAA, TSA, and DOT Washington, DC
that followed his election 2017). But clever and smart regulations. It can be carried
and inauguration earlier aren’t the same thing. Even on any flight and checked on YOUR NAME
this year, I was disappointed corporations with deep pock- any flight except those IN LIGHTS
that Columbia Magazine ets have had serious problems originating in Asia. Visit Alumni magazines inevi-
gave prominent attention to with batteries. If I were www.awaytravel.com/battery tably highlight success and
these negative reactions by an airline or the National for more information. — Ed. achievement, but why not
both the Speaker of the New Transportation Safety Board, also randomly pick out alums
York City Council and the I would look very carefully LOST AT SEA and do profiles of them? You
president of the University. at the safety of high-capacity Thank you for the short may connect with a wider
Both based their vitriolic batteries in luggage. piece on Chilean presi- audience by showing alums
reactions on the administra- On another topic, B-school dent Michelle Bachelet’s who are just regular people
tion’s tightened regulation teaches us a lot about the visit to the Marcus G. who may have their own defi-
of immigration. Both failed bottom line and little about Langseth research vessel nitions of success and their
to recognize that entry to social responsibility. Why (“Chilean president visits own hopes, aspirations, fears,
any country by those born or did Korey and Rubio Columbia research ship,” and failures, too.
residing elsewhere is not a immediately Bulletin, Spring 2017). In the Sin Hang Lai ’01GSAS
right but a privilege granted inset photograph, however, Norwalk, CT
by the receiving nation.
Societies have always QUESTIONS? you failed to recognize one of
your own. Emilio Vera stud- CORRECTION
set standards upon which
acceptance and recogni-
COMMENTS? ied at what was then called
the Lamont-Doherty Geolog-
In the Finals quiz in the
Spring 2017 issue, the correct
tion are based — standards WE WELCOME THEM ALL! ical Observatory, earning his answer to question eight,
relating to health, morality, E-MAIL US AT:
PhD in 1989. Now an asso- “Which team won the first
financial self-support, intent, feedback@columbia.edu ciate professor of geophysics women’s Ivy championship for
and, above all, security. One at the University of Chile in Columbia?,” should have been
OR WRITE TO US:
would not open the door to Columbia Magazine Santiago, Vera worked with the 1989 fencing team, not,
one’s home without applying Columbia Alumni Center Columbia to conduct this as we wrote, the 2006 soccer
standards of acceptability. 622 W. 113th Street, MC 4521 scientific cruise. team. We regret the error and
New York, NY 10025
Columbia University would Juan M. Lorenzo ’91GSAS encourage quiz-takers to give
not admit a student who has Letters may be edited for brevity or clarity. Baton Rouge, LA themselves the point.
6 COLUMBIA SUMMER 2017
It was important to us
to see the effects of
our giving now.”
—JEFFREY ’68SEAS
AND LINDA FRANKLIN
PLAN NOW TO MAKE
MORE
POSSIBLE
Combine current giving with will planning.
Jeff and Linda Franklin are on track to create up to eight named scholarships through
their current giving to the Jeffrey and Linda Franklin Scholarship Fund. They plan to fully
endow them all later with gifts through their wills. “We wanted be able to meet the students
we are helping,” says Linda, “to see how Columbia is affecting their lives, and to know
that we are making a difference.”
What will you make possible? Contact us at 800-338-3294 or gift.planning@columbia.edu to
learn more about giving through your will and other creative ways to support Columbia.
giving.columbia.edu/PlanNow2017
800-338-3294 • gift.planning@columbia.edu
COLLEGE
WALK
NOTES
FROM 116TH
STREET AND
BEYOND
ROOM WITH A VIEW
The Wallach Art Gallery relocates to Manhattanville
F
irst, there are the moving the institution from artists — including those from
elevators. Like visual its 2,300-square-foot surrounding communities
sorbet, their intense windowless warren on the and the School of the Arts —
orange walls seem to eighth floor of Schermerhorn and offer that vibrant bouquet
cleanse the optical Hall to a bigger, more acces- to the public.
palate, so that when the sible space in a brand-new On April 22, when the
doors open onto the sixth location on West 125th Street Lenfest Center opened,
floor of the Lenfest Center in Manhattanville. Cullen welcomed visitors
for the Arts and visitors step A self-described “art-history to the Wallach’s inaugural
into the Miriam and Ira D. nerd,” Cullen, who spent show: the annual MFA thesis
Wallach Art Gallery, their fifteen years as the curator of exhibition for the School of
eyes are already primed El Museo del Barrio, had long the Arts’ visual-arts program.
to soak up the paintings, been an admirer of the Wal- It was the first time that this
sculptures, and installations lach. Established in 1986 by showcase had been held on
within. And yet the initial Columbia’s Department of Art campus. (Schermerhorn
sensation of entering the History and Archaeology, and was too small, so for years it
3,600-square-foot sunlit known for its research-based was held at a space in Long
space is visceral as well as programming, the gallery was Island City.) Throughout
visual: a jolt of recognition a hidden jewel that deserved a the day, hundreds of people
that one is standing in an im- more prominent setting. poured across the public pla-
portant new art venue in New For Cullen, overseeing this za, entered the building, and
York, and therefore the world. move was a dream assign- passed through the glass-
Which is just what Deborah ment. The things she would enclosed lobby and into
Cullen had hoped for. Five be able to do — the spatial those orange elevators.
years ago, when Cullen was puzzles to solve, the boundar- Inside the Wallach, the
appointed director and chief ies to push! Here, too, was a artwork hung, dangled,
curator of the Wallach Art chance to infuse the Wallach spread, rose from the wood
TIM LEE
Gallery, she was tasked with with the fresh blood of living floor, beckoned from around
8 COLUMBIA SUMMER 2017thinking about broader com-
munity,” Cullen says. “We need
to let people know they’re THE SHORT LIST
VISIT
welcome: Here we are. It’s free.
A new exhibit at the
We want you here.”
Museum of Modern Art
Community-building is
part of the impetus behind celebrates the 150th anniversary of
the Wallach’s next show, Frank Lloyd Wright’s birth. Organized by
Uptown, which runs from Columbia professor and MoMA curator
June 2 to August 20. The Barry Bergdoll ’77CC, ’86GSAS and Avery
exhibit features artists who Library. From June 12 to October 1. moma.org
live or work north of 99th
Street. “I think it’s really
important for Columbia to be
a good neighbor and put its WATCH Academy Award–
winning director
Kathryn Bigelow ’81SOA is releasing
money where its mouth is,”
says Cullen. “There’s not a lot her latest film, Detroit, which recounts
of overlap or cross-pollination a particularly violent incident from that
between the neighborhoods city’s 1967 race riot. In theaters August 4.
of northern Manhattan.”
Uptown brings together
artists from Harlem, Wash-
ington Heights, El Barrio, CRUISE The Columbia
Alumni Association’s
Alumni Travel Study Program mixes
and elsewhere.
In assembling the artists, learning and leisure at sea. Destinations
corners. People stared, cocked Cullen drew from her own include the South China Sea and
their heads, or stood with knowledge and solicited more the Chilean fjords of Patagonia.
hands clasped in pensive names from other local insti-
alumni.columbia.edu/category
attitudes. Some took pictures tutions: the Studio Museum
/study-trip-type/cruise
with their phones. And there in Harlem, the Hispanic
was Deborah Cullen, chatting Society of America, and the
with artists and faculty and
guests and photographers.
She looked thoroughly excited
Schomburg Center for
Research in Black Culture.
And as she met new artists,
TOUR Take a guided historical
and architectural tour
of the Morningside campus, starting at
and slightly overstimulated. “I she asked them for recom- Low Library. Weekday tours are held
feel like an anxious mother,” mendations. “Pretty soon I
from June 1 to August 31. Register at
she said with a laugh. had a list of two hundred art-
visitorscenter@columbia.edu
Cullen had mastered the ists,” says Cullen. She selected
boxlike space by shrewdly about twenty-five for Uptown.
breaking it up with thick
movable walls, creating a
graceful layout with ample
Winnowing things down
on the one hand, expanding
them on the other: Cullen
MEET UP Columbia’s
virtual
Networking Hour brings together alumni
room for each student’s work. the scene-shifter, the space- professionals across a range of industries.
“I try to give it some flow shaper.
July 13 at 6:30 p.m. EDT. Register at
and sensibility,” Cullen says. The space-sharer.
bit.ly/CAAnetworkinghour
“It’s sort of like figuring out a “People have been wander-
Rubik’s Cube.” ing into the lobby of Lenfest
The Wallach will be open
year-round, and Cullen wants
the public, and especially the
and saying, ‘What is this?’”
says Cullen. “That’s a real ben-
efit. We didn’t have drive-by
LOG ON Exercise vigilance
with Columbia’s
Global Freedom of Expression website,
neighbors, to know that this is traffic in Schermerhorn. But which tracks free-speech cases worldwide.
their gallery, too. “This seems here we will.”
globalfreedomofexpression.columbia.edu
like a wonderful time to be — Paul Hond
COLUMBIA SUMMER 2017 9COLLEGE WALK
DISTURBING THE PEACE has no clothes’ or else we’ll
go insane.”
Usman traced comedy’s
Standup comedians sit down for a conference
protest roots to the 1950s,
when comics from minority
backgrounds began con-
fronting societal hypocrisies.
“The great pioneers — Lenny
Bruce, Dick Gregory — were
basically a crew of Black
American and Jewish Ameri-
can standup comedians,”
Usman said. “They were
always agitating, always mak-
ing audiences uncomfortable.”
They were also getting laughs
— in effect, softening up a
listener’s defenses, allowing
their ideas to seep through.
“Jokes create an opening,”
said Goldman, an adjunct
assistant professor at Teach-
ers College. “You’re more
open physically and cogni-
tively when you hear a joke.”
Yang spoke of using humor
“as a direct line to someone’s
emotions and thoughts.”
Ali, the moderator, reflect-
ed on the shifting role of the
comedian, from fool to social
critic to, nowadays, arbiter of
truth. Noting that millennials
tend to get their news from
late-night TV comedians, Ali
asked if standup has a “moral
responsibility.” To which
S
Usman, who wears a long
o, a Muslim Amer- and moderator Wajahat Ali before offering a dictionary beard and a skullcap (a basis
ican comedian, an to discuss the role of humor definition of peace: “the for his riffs on his interest-
Asian-American in social justice, as part of freedom from disturbance; ing experiences in airports),
comedian, and a Columbia’s annual Sustain- tranquility.” Yet, he said, “the paraphrased Lenny Bruce:
Jewish American ing Peace Forum, an all-day role of comedians is often “The job of a comedian
academic walk into a room . . . event cosponsored by centers to disturb, disrupt, be loud, is to consistently produce
Well, almost. Azhar Usman at the Earth Institute, SIPA, agitate, and upset.” Yang laughter through telling
of Chicago and Jenny Yang of Teachers College, and the told the crowd that there jokes,” he said. “That’s the job
Los Angeles didn’t walk into business school. “needs to be disruption and description. If the comedian
the room; they were project- Ali, a writer and lawyer, sometimes some unrest for does that, he or she is a good
ed onto a screen via Skype at opened with a crack about peace to happen,” and that comedian.” But the comedian
the Kellogg Center in the In- Usman’s tardiness (“This challenging power through who raises moral awareness,
MICHAEL KIRKHAM
ternational Affairs Building. is Muslim Standard Time; humor “makes us feel like he said, attains brilliance.
There they joined educator stereotypes are being we’re less crazy. Someone And then the talk turned,
Nancy Goldman ’11TC perpetuated as we speak”) has to say ‘the emperor as it had to, to political
10 COLUMBIA SUMMER 2017correctness. Ali observed
that a heightened PC culture,
especially on college campus-
es, makes many comedians
“feel hamstrung from truly
delivering the biting material
that they believe is edgy and
pushes things forward.”
Usman, who used to prac-
tice law, supports standards
of etiquette that deter hateful
or disrespectful speech. “But
at the same time,” he said,
standup is “all about free
speech.” Yang, a former labor
organizer, saves her barbs for
those at the top. “When I tell
a joke, I think about the con-
sequences of my words,” she
said. “There’s always a target
in comedy. Who’s my target?
I think about that and care
about that.”
Traditionally, the target has
been authority. “We inherited
the history of the court jest-
INTELLIGENT DESIGNS
er,” said Goldman, and the
idea that “the average citizen
has the power to make fun of
those in high office.” Comedi- The human brain becomes art on the wall
ans, she said, “are playing the
role of the citizen criticizing
B
rain Index, a twenty-four-foot-high digital art installa-
the court.”
Though the job doesn’t get tion on the ground floor of the Jerome L. Greene Science
easier when the court itself
Center, invites visitors to peer inside the brain and also
lurches beyond satire.
“Steve Bannon,” said to meet the neuroscientists who are working upstairs
Usman, “is like a cartoon
villain.” to unravel its complexities. Looped images of the brain are spliced
“Do you think he twiddles between profiles of Zuckerman Institute researchers, and interac-
his thumbs when no one’s
watching?” said Ali. tive panels guide viewers through each scientist’s area of expertise.
“He’s more of the two-
“We’re trying to make the science in the building accessible and
hands, fingers-together type,”
says Yang, making a steeple personal, and at the same time communicate how much we have
gesture under her chin.
“Is Stephen Miller the cat
yet to learn,” says Laura Kurgan ’88GSAPP, a Columbia architecture
stroker?” said Ali. professor who spent three years working on the project with Mark
“Someone’s stroking the
cat,” Yang said. “It’s probably Hansen, a Columbia journalism professor and data specialist. “The
Donald Trump.”
JEFFREY SAKS
moving screens map the research taking place in the building and,
“Ba-dum ching,” said Ali.
— Paul Hond like opening doors, invite the public to step in and explore.”
COLUMBIA SUMMER 2017 11COLLEGE WALK
No-Spin Zone COUNTING
How to talk when we talk
about science VAN DORENS
Past winners of the Mark Van Doren
H
Award for Teaching raise their glasses to
ow do you convince a skeptic that the profession
climate change is real? Or persuade a
O
creationist that humans share a com-
mon ancestor with chimpanzees? ne after the next, Liberal Education. He would
“What we try to do in this class,” said the honored engage his Columbia College
Claudia Dreifus, a veteran correspondent for the professors arrived students as equals, with real
New York Times, “is teach scientists, or scientists- at the landmarked inquisitiveness, wanting to
to-be, the basics of journalism, so that they can building on West learn along with them. Adam
communicate their own science to the world.” But 57th Street. Inside, they referred to The Seven Storey
on this spring evening, the class, Writing About entered a high-ceilinged Mountain, the memoir by
Global Science for the International Media, offered room, which was preserved the Trappist monk Thomas
by the School of Professional Studies, had a twist: in a kind of mid-century Merton ’38CC, ’39GSAS,
the lesson was how not to talk about science. bohemian-intellectual glory: who devoted a long passage
Dreifus’s guest was Cornelia Dean, the former Persian carpets, red walls to his professor, writing of
science editor of the Times. Dean had just pub- with gold filigree, bookcases “Mark’s sober and sincere
lished a book, Making Sense of Science: Separating and paintings, busts and intellect, and his manner of
Substance from Spin, which seeks to help nonsci- lamps, tall bay windows dealing with his subject with
entists evaluate scientific claims. hand-painted with Russian perfect honesty and objectiv-
One sign of spin is a posture of certitude. “We folk dancers. In the midst, ity and without evasions.”
can’t say in science that something is true,” Dean under the chandelier, stood Near the wine-and-cheese
said. What we can say is that there is “no credible Adam Van Doren ’84CC, table, past recipients of the
challenge” to a theory. ’90GSAPP. He was talking Mark Van Doren Award for
Dean suggested that people often misunder- about his grandfather, Teaching — which was estab-
stand the scientific method. “If you take a chem Mark Van Doren ’21GSAS, lished in 1962 and is con-
lab or a physics lab in high school, you’re typically ’60HON, the poet, critic, ferred by students — chatted
given ingredients and a set of instructions for your memoirist, editor, Great with members of the current
so-called experiment, whose outcome is known in Books promulgator, Pulitzer awards committee, who
advance,” said Dean. “Nothing could be more an- Prize winner, and the embod- would soon announce the
tithetical to the spirit of scientific inquiry.” Rather, iment of the Platonic ideal of 2017 winner, history profes-
science “is filled with blind alleys, bad ideas, failed a Columbia professor, which sor Caterina Luigia Pizzigoni.
projects. But we don’t describe it that way.” he was for thirty-nine years. It was a hall-of-fame lineup
As a result, many people see science as infalli- “I never saw my grand- of profs: Kenneth Jackson,
ble, so that when new evidence comes along and father teach, but I heard Carol Gluck ’77GSAS,
shakes old assumptions — which is how science enough to know that for Michael Rosenthal ’67GSAS,
works — they can lose faith in the whole enterprise. him, connecting with Elizabeth Blackmar —
A student raised her hand. She had recently students was a matter of thirteen in all. One waggish,
interviewed a climate scientist, who told her that choice,” said Adam, a painter sprightly eighty-five-year-old
there are people who, “no matter what you say, no and filmmaker who teaches eminence — that would be
matter how much you try to convince them other- at Yale. “Some professors Ted Tayler, famed professor
wise,” won’t accept the evidence that the planet is could give two beanstalks of Shakespeare and Milton
warming. How, as a journalist, the student wanted about connecting; they just — was lamenting, with a
to know, did Dean approach people like that? regurgitate information and twinkle, the widespread
“You’re not there to persuade people,” Dean said. write their books.” use these days, written and
“You’re there to give them information.” For Mark Van Doren, the oral, of a certain four-letter
Worth remembering for your next assignment — art of teaching was “the art word, which he enunciated
or family barbecue. of assisting discovery,” as delicately. He half blamed
— Ian Scheffler ’12CC he wrote in his 1943 book Allen Ginsberg ’48CC.
12 COLUMBIA SUMMER 2017essence of Mark’s pedagog-
ical method. “There’s you,
there’s the teacher, and
there’s what happens in
between.” Adam understood
why his grandfather was
revered, and how he stayed
friends with his students:
Merton, Ginsberg, John
Berryman ’36CC, Alfred
Kazin ’38GSAS, Lionel
Trilling ’25CC, ’38GSAS, Jack
Kerouac ’44CC, and others.
“There’s no generation gap
when you’re connected with
ideas,” Adam said.
As a student at Columbia
himself, Adam was a regular
at the Van Doren Award
festivities. But it wasn’t until
five years ago, when he revis-
ited the ceremony and met
former Columbia College
dean Austin Quigley, that he
learned about the selection
process. Adam had assumed
that the awards committee
got together to vote “on one
sleepless forty-eight-hour
weekend.” But Quigley
(who received the award in
2015) informed him that
the students attend classes
of prospective honorees and
meet once a week over seven
months to hash things out.
Impressed and inspired,
— Mark Van Doren Adam decided to organize a
gathering of the winners.
Tayler, a perennial student After all, in the 1930s, the at the Nation. This explains And here it was, a multi-
favorite, came to Columbia Van Dorens were the New Dorothy Parker’s line about generational get-together of
in 1960, a year after Van York literary establishment. her attempts to cure her practitioners and pupils, from
Doren’s retirement. Like Van Mark’s brother, Carl Van insomnia: “I have even tried the venerable Tayler to Adam’s
Doren, he taught in Hamilton Doren 1911GSAS, was a liter- counting Van Dorens.” daughter, Abbott Van Doren,
Hall for thirty-nine years. He ary critic and Pulitzer Prize– Adam told of how Mark’s a Columbia sophomore.
hadn’t personally known the winning biographer; Carl’s students, after class, still Adam praised the profes-
professor, who died in 1972, wife, Irita Bradford Van under the spell of his teach- sors and saved his last word
WALTER SANDERS / GETTY IMAGES
and was surprised as anyone Doren, was the books editor ing, would follow him across for those who brought out
to learn that Van Doren had of the New York Herald Tri- campus, into the subway, the best in the best teachers.
sprung from the dusty loam bune; Mark’s wife, Dorothy and up to his front door in “To the students who make
of rural Illinois, and not, as Graffe Van Doren ’18BC, was the Village. “My grandfather this all possible,” he said,
some guests speculated, from a novelist and, like several called it ‘the third thing,’” glass in hand. “I salute you.”
New York Dutch nobility. other Van Dorens, an editor said Adam, describing the — Paul Hond
COLUMBIA SUMMER 2017 13SUPPER
CLUB
New York Times food writer
Melissa Clark ’90BC, ’94SOA
invites everyone to the table
BY REBECCA SHAPIRO
It’s a Tuesday morning at Brooklyn’s Runner & Stone bakery, and
ALL PHOTOGRAPHS © 2017 BY ERIC WOLFINGER. FROM DINNER, PUBLISHED BY CLARKSON POTTER, AN IMPRINT OF PENGUIN RANDOM HOUSE, LLC.
Melissa Clark ’90BC, ’94SOA is in line, holding court.
A layer of fog hovers over the gritty Gowanus Canal nearby, but
the bakery is airy and warm. Clark, like a cat, has found the sunniest
table, and she’s placed her order — a buckwheat baguette, extra but-
ter, and a latte with plenty of sugar. Now she’s chatting up the other
customers, selling them on the surprisingly nutty texture of the buck-
wheat and the fact that the bakery uses rich European butter. She
talks quickly and emphatically, and by the time the other customers
have reached the cash register, they’re transfixed by this preternatu-
rally cheerful woman with the broad smile and the mane of red hair.
Many abandon their original orders and decide to mimic Clark’s.
“I can’t seem to help myself,” she says. “You’d think I was on
the payroll.”
In fact, Clark has nothing at stake. She just loves food, to the point
of evangelism. And if there’s a way to make a meal better — even an
ordinary Tuesday breakfast — she wants to share it with the world.
Clark’s new friends may not recognize her, but odds are they’ve
made one of her recipes. She’s written the weekly column A Good
Appetite in the New York Times’s dining section for more than a
decade, and a search of NYT Cooking, the paper’s digital culinary hub,
finds nearly a thousand recipes attributed to her. She’s also written or
collaborated on a mind-boggling thirty-eight cookbooks. This spring,
she released her latest — Dinner: Changing the Game, a collection of
what Bon Appétit called “over 200 why-didn’t-I-think-of-that recipes.”
Clark is known for pairing basic, easily mastered cooking techniques
with new and interesting ingredient combinations, giving home cooksCOLUMBIA SUMMER 2017 15
vastly more options. For example, Dinner “They were constantly making fricas- where she studied with Frank McCourt,
includes eight different recipes for roast seed rabbit and pâtés,” she says. “I thought who eight years later would become
chicken: one with sherry vinegar and that was what everyone ate for dinner.” famous for his memoir Angela’s Ashes. “He
grapes; one with smoky paprika, crispy Clark’s earliest memories are of being was the first person to tell me that I should
chickpeas, and kale; and so on. Once in the kitchen, helping her parents make be a writer,” Clark says.
readers are comfortable roasting a chicken, bread or shape walnut-studded dough After school and on the weekends,
they suddenly have eight dishes in their into cookies: “If there was a bowl to lick, she worked at an ice-cream parlor called
arsenal. Quick pizza dough (store-bought I was ready to help.” Weekends were also Peter’s, on Brooklyn’s Atlantic Avenue.
is also fine) gets topped with butternut for exploring, and the Clarks followed When the owner decided to start serving
squash, pecorino, and roasted lemons — a their stomachs. They went to the Lower brunch, he put Clark in charge. “Basically,
sophisticated alternative to tomato and East Side for bagels and lox at Russ and he didn’t want to get up early on Sun-
mozzarella for the same amount of work. Daughters (still Clark’s go-to for smoked days,” she says. “I got to make pastries and
One dinner game-changer, Clark says, fish), to Sheepshead Bay for clams at chicken-liver omelets. And I also got a
is keeping a well-stocked pantry. She sug- Lundy’s, and to Chinatown for dim sum, feel for how a professional kitchen works.”
gests, for example, that home cooks invest where Clark honed her already adventur- Though she would spend a great deal of
in a jar of harissa, a North African chili ous palate: “I always went for the cart with time in restaurant kitchens throughout
paste that she uses in a chicken dish with the chicken feet. Eating them is a delicate her career, working as a brunch chef at
leeks and potatoes, a slow-roasted tuna process. I’m really good at it.” seventeen was the first and last time she
with olives, and a spicy baked shrimp with But Clark’s real culinary education actually cooked in one.
eggplant and mint. Pomegranate molasses came in the summers, when her parents Clark thought about going to culinary
— a staple of Middle Eastern cuisine — would shut their psychiatric practices for school, but instead followed McCourt’s
finds its way into chicken breasts with the month of August and take Clark and advice and headed to Barnard, where she
walnut butter, roasted tofu and eggplant, her sister to France. Long before Airbnb
and peachy pork with charred onion. or even e-mail, they would arrange house
“People really get into a cooking rut,
thinking that they can only make five or
swaps with other families.
“We’d exchange actual letters,” Clark
“IOWEALOTOFMY
ten different recipes. There’s that beef says. “And then this French family would EARLYSUCCESS
thing they make. Or that chicken thing,” come to Brooklyn, which was not the
Clark says. “But my book has twenty-six most charming place in the world in the TOJUSTBLINDLY
chicken things. And most of them are riffs
on the chicken thing you already know
eighties. And we’d go to some magical
little town in Provence. We got the better
SAYINGYESTO
how to make.” end of the deal.” EVERYTHING.”
This is not to say that Clark expects, or The Clarks visited their share of
even wants, people to follow her blindly. Michelin-starred restaurants, where Clark
She loves it when people tell her not only ate the classics: perfect omelets, delicate studied English, then directly to Columbia
that they’ve made her recipes, but how sole meunière, and towering soufflés. But for an MFA in writing.
they’ve adapted them to their own palates. it was the markets and farm stands that To pay for school, Clark worked full-
The recipes are meant to be jumping-off really made an impression. In France, time at Columbia’s Institute for Research
points, totally functional as written, but there was no such thing as a weekly trip to on Women and Gender, first as a sec-
always open to what she calls, very techni- the grocery store: people would buy fresh retary and then as a research assistant.
cally, “futzing.” bread, cheese, and eggs every day. Instead Professors there encouraged Clark’s
“I see myself as a guide,” Clark says. of margarine, there were slabs of real nascent interest in medieval history,
“Everyone has a thing. Mine’s just always butter softening on every shop counter. and for a while, she thought she’d write
been food.” And there was an open-air market in the feminist-tinged historical fiction, in the
center of every town, with piles of toma- tradition of Antonia Fraser.
C
lark grew up in Ditmas Park, toes, eggplants, cherries, peaches, figs, “But I kept getting distracted by food.
Brooklyn, in the seventies and and bunches of fragrant herbs. It was my metaphor for everything. I
eighties, in a house where meals “At that time, it was harder to find fresh could be writing about feudal rights in
were cherished and Julia Child’s Mastering vegetables in America,” she says. “Every- the Middle Ages and I’d spend half the
the Art of French Cooking was like a family thing was canned or frozen. I was totally time talking about what they were eating,”
Bible. Clark’s parents — both Columbia- taken both by the produce and by the idea she says. “I once wrote an entire paper on
trained psychiatrists — were enthusiastic of seasonal eating.” bread and onions in Don Quixote.”
home cooks who teamed up to host dinner At age fourteen, Clark earned a place at In 1993, Clark’s second year at Colum-
parties nearly every weekend. the prestigious Stuyvesant High School, bia, the MFA program offered its first
16 COLUMBIA SUMMER 2017Melissa Clark She had the publisher send her four ma-
with her husband, chines, which she kept running twenty-
Daniel Gercke,
and daughter, four hours a day, waking up at four in
Dahlia. the morning to feed them new batches of
dough. Clark loved the combination of sci-
ence and creativity in recipe development.
She felt as if she’d found her niche.
“I owe a lot of my early success to just
blindly saying yes to everything,” she says.
“Call it confidence or call it stupidity.”
Clark’s big breaks — the ones that have
made her a household name to many
home cooks — came in the late nineties,
almost simultaneously. After filling in for
a friend on maternity leave, Clark was
offered her first regular gig in the Times
dining section: a short advice column
called Food Chain. The topics were eclec-
tic and decidedly pre-Google: everything
from why it’s important to proof your
yeast to where to find the best Hungarian
goulash in New York City. Most impor-
tantly, the piece came with a byline. “It
made people start to ask: who is this
food-writing class, taught by cookbook tute for Research on Women and Gender. Melissa Clark person?”
author and food historian Betty Fussell. Soon, faculty members there and at the One of those people was Sylvia Woods,
Like M. F. K. Fisher (Clark’s childhood School of Social Work, where she also Harlem’s “Queen of Soul Food,” who
idol) and Richard Olney, Fussell was a had a part-time job, were hiring her for needed a coauthor for her cookbook.
food-writing pioneer, and in her class- personal functions. Clark got the job, and for several months
room Clark felt like she could see a future “It was either me or the deli next door, she would travel to Harlem and spend
for herself. Clark also started studying and I was cheaper,” Clark says. “I did a time with Woods and her family, listen-
with Priscilla Ferguson ’67GSAS, a lot of wine-and-cheese receptions, which ing to their stories. She’d often take the
sociology professor who was researching were not so glamorous. But I was always subway home carrying a pot of Woods’s
the relationship between cuisine and experimenting. I discovered the Union homemade oxtails.
national identity in France. Square Greenmarket during those years, “I had platinum-blond hair at that point,
“Food writing was not taken seriously and Kalustyan’s for spices. I started play- and Sylvia called me the whitest white girl
then. Aside from a few restaurant critics, ing around with flavors.” she’d ever met,” Clark says. “But I found
it just wasn’t a thing,” Clark says. “I really Clark graduated, moved downtown, that I was good at ghostwriting, at assum-
didn’t know before then that it was some- and tried to cobble together enough ing someone else’s voice — it must’ve been
thing you could do with your life.” food-related gigs to pay the rent: she that little part of me that went to Colum-
Clark switched her focus to creative continued to cater, she wrote restaurant bia to be a novelist.”
nonfiction, and for her thesis she decided blurbs for Time Out New York (“the true From there, Clark went on to collaborate
to craft a portrait of three up-and-coming dream for any New York twentysomething with some of New York’s most prominent
New York chefs. She spent a year — going out to eat and getting paid for chefs: Gramercy Tavern’s pastry chef,
watching them work, trying to capture it”), and she worked as a coat-check girl Claudia Fleming; Bouley owner and
their different cooking styles, as well as at An American Place, where she sneaked executive chef David Bouley; and the leg-
the personality traits that led a person into the kitchen as often as possible to endary Daniel Boulud, to name just a few.
to succeed (or not) in the intensity of a watch the chefs work. Then a small book “People ask me all the time why I didn’t
professional kitchen. publisher approached her about develop- go to culinary school. But I think I got a
In her own very unprofessional stu- ing recipes for a new kitchen appliance: better education working on cookbooks.
dent-apartment kitchen, Clark was the bread machine. Who else can say that they’ve had a private
launching a business of her own. Word “I had six weeks to come up with one tutorial from Daniel Boulud?”
had gotten around that she liked to cook, hundred recipes. And of course I’d never Oddly, it was Clark’s work with restau-
so she started catering events at the Insti- even seen a bread machine,” Clark says. rant chefs that made her a fierce advocate
COLUMBIA SUMMER 2017 17for the home cook. To write the cook- of the Grand Army Plaza Greenmarket, SEARED SAUSAGE &
books, Clark would usually take the reci- Brooklyn’s largest farmers’ market, which RHUBARB WITH
pes home and make them in her kitchen, sets up on Saturday mornings at the en-
with her own set of knives and pots trance to Prospect Park. Her weekly ritual
SWISS CHARD
and pans. She’d make notes about what is a jog along the park’s 3.3-mile wooded TOTAL TIME: 45 MINUTES / SERVES 4
realistically worked in a home kitchen for loop (the same path she’s been running 2 tablespoons extra-virgin olive oil
someone with access only to a neighbor- since she was seventeen years old), fol- 1 pound sweet Italian sausages,
hood grocery store, and then she’d bring lowed by a stop for groceries. pricked with a fork
the final product back to the restaurant On a recent Saturday, she’s smitten by 1 red onion, thinly sliced
for the chef to taste. the spring produce: the broad leaves of 1 bunch green, red, or rainbow Swiss
“I was always asking: How do we make rainbow Swiss chard, the fat bunches of chard, stems cut into ¼-inch
it easier? How do we make it faster?” asparagus, the rosy stalks of rhubarb, and slices, leaves torn into bite-sized
Clark says. “I think many people in the the elusive ramps, wild-growing cousins pieces
food industry don’t understand that there’s of leeks and garlic that only appear for a 8 ounces rhubarb stems,
a difference between a chef and a cook.” few weeks. “I love spring produce because cut into ¼-inch-thick slices
it’s so fleeting. You gear up for the ramps, 2 tablespoons dried currants
T
oday, Clark’s whole professional think about when the ramps will start to 2 tablespoons maple syrup
world revolves around a kitchen: arrive, put ramps on everything, and then 1 teaspoon garam masala
specifically, the one in the Brooklyn they’re gone!” Clark likes them on crostini ¼ teaspoon kosher salt
brownstone she shares with her husband with a little whipped ricotta; this week, 1-inch piece fresh ginger,
peeled and grated
and eight-year-old daughter. She spends though, she grabs an armful of chard,
1 bay leaf
her days there with an assistant, testing a few stems of rhubarb, and a pound of
recipes for her Times column and videos, sweet Italian sausage.
1. Heat the olive oil in a 12-inch skillet
over medium-high heat. Add the
“MANY PEOPLE IN THE FOOD INDUSTRY sausages and cook until they are
cooked through and well browned all
DON’T UNDERSTAND THAT THERE’S A over, about 12 minutes total. Transfer
the sausages to a plate.
DIFFERENCE BETWEEN A CHEF AND A COOK.” 2. Add the onion to the skillet and cook,
stirring frequently, until softened,
about 5 minutes. Stir in the chard
and for her ever-growing list of cookbooks. “People tend to think of rhubarb only stems and continue to cook until the
Clark is vigilant about staying current in terms of pie, but they forget that it’s onion is well browned and the chard
— keeping up with new trends, gadgets, actually a vegetable, and terrific in savory stems are almost tender, about
and ideas. One of her most shared dishes,” Clark says. To temper the tartness, 7 minutes. Add the rhubarb, currants,
recent columns was on the Instant Pot, she plans to sauté it with the chard, fresh maple syrup, garam masala, salt,
an appliance that combines a pressure ginger, currants, and maple syrup. She’ll ginger, and bay leaf to the skillet.
cooker, slow cooker, steamer, and sauté brown the sausages and serve them with Cook, stirring often, until the rhubarb
pan (Clark’s verdict: buy one if you don’t the greens over polenta. “Though barley or has fallen apart and the chard stems
already own a slow cooker). She’s fully quinoa would work, too. Or mashed pota- are tender, 7 to 10 minutes. If the
embraced another technique popular with toes. And there you have it — dinner!” bottom of the pan begins to scorch,
the blogging set: the sheet-pan dinner, For many professional cooks and food stir in some water, a few tablespoons
in which proteins, starch, and vegetables writers, home cooking can start to feel like at a time.
roast together for a quick meal. And she’s a chore, an extension of the workday. But 3. Toss in the chard leaves and cook,
constantly trying to master new interna- not for Clark. Even after spending a full stirring frequently, until they are
tional cuisines, to imbue her recipes with day in the kitchen, sometimes baking the wilted, about 5 minutes. Transfer the
different flavor combinations. same cake a dozen times until it comes out chard mixture to a heated serving
“Right now, I’m obsessed with Korean perfectly, she says that the best part of her platter and pluck out the bay leaf.
cooking,” Clark says, pulling out a Barnard day is making dinner for her family. 4. Return the sausages to the skillet and
let them heat through, shaking the
Alumnae notepad where she’s jotted down “My husband will put on music and
pan so they crisp a little on all sides,
ideas for a kimchi-based stew and a slaw pour some wine. My daughter is at the
CREDITS GO HERE
about 2 minutes. Serve the sausages
that uses the leftover braising liquids. table, doing her homework. And I’m
over the rhubarb-chard mixture.
Seasonal eating remains central to her chopping vegetables,” Clark says. “It’s like
RECIPE REPRINTED FROM DINNER, PUBLISHED BY CLARKSON
food philosophy. She’s practically the mayor getting a weekend every single day.” POTTER, AN IMPRINT OF PENGUIN RANDOM HOUSE, LLC.
18 COLUMBIA SUMMER 2017You can also read
