Q&A: Andrew Zimmern

AZ's food origin story and so much more.

The year was 1996 and I was studying baking and pastry at the Culinary Institute of America in upstate NY, while also looking for a job so I could return home to Minneapolis where my husband, Graham, and our dogs were. I got pulled out of class to take a call with Andrew Zimmern, a chef who was opening a new restaurant in Minneapolis and needed a pastry assistant. Five minutes into the call I had the job and by the following week, I packed up and drove home to start the journey of a lifetime. I had NO idea, after our brief phone interview, what I was walking into with Andrew. Turns out it was the single most profound decision of my life. He has been a true friend and mentor and has dragged me into areas of my career that I probably would have passed on, out of fear, had he not been so persistent.