people know you as:   Sarah.

where you lived first year:   The Choates.

your major:   Economics.

Dartmouth person(s) who had a major influence on you, and how:   Economics professor Amitabh Chandra. On the first day of class, he seemed amused when I stated my intention to open a restaurant rather than become an investment banker. His subsequent support of my unconventional intentions convinced the Dartmouth Reynolds Scholarship Committee to fund my “graduate studies” in food at a Slow Food–sponsored cooking school in Italy.

one of your most memorable Dartmouth moments:   Wielding a blow torch in the jewelry studio. I can't believe they let just anybody play with molten gold!

where's home:   St. Louis, Missouri.

where you live now:   San Francisco.

what you do for work:   As the first employee of Slow Food Nation, I did everything from planning $1,000-a-head fundraising dinners to facilitating think tanks with Alice Waters, Marion Nestle, Michael Pollan, and other food system innovators. Now we have 10 employees, and we're focused on planning the first large-scale Slow Food event in the United States, to be held for 60,000 people in San Francisco over Labor Day weekend. I'm the content director, working out the event framework and bringing together experts in the community to curate each of the pieces, from on-site chocolate roasting and production to tea workshops and a farmers' market.

you could talk for hours about:   Family-style Italian cooking.

something you learned yesterday:   Things will get done, even if I'm not the one doing all of them.

favorite spot in your home:   The tall, light wood counter by the stove, where I can let my mind wander while baking lemon curd cake or candied tangerine peel and marzipan oatmeal cookies.

web site you love to go to:   www.epicurious.com. For recipes.

biggest one-eighty of your life:   I spent two years in Bra, a Baroque town of 30,000 in the Piedmontese hills, working for Slow Food at its birthplace, enjoying frequent breaks for café, two-hour lunches, and a fluid work/social life. Then Alice Waters offered me a job, and I packed up and moved to Berkeley to be the girl Friday for the busiest person I've ever met in my life.

trait you love about someone dear to you:   My younger sister's boundless caring and empathy.

you've been meaning to get to it for years:   Darn my favorite sweater.

historical figure who fascinates you, and why:   Lady Ch'ing, the most successful pirate in history, who in the 1800s rose from working in a brothel to commanding a confederation of 50,000 pirates. Her fleet was larger than the Spanish Armada, and when she finally negotiated amnesty, she got to keep all of her booty and live until the ripe old age of 69 in China.

you blow off steam by:   Running up a hill.

reading on the bedside table:   Food: The History of Taste, edited by Paul Freedman.

tops on tomorrow's to-do list:   Figure out how ticketing will work at the Slow Food Nation event, speak to 30 convivium (chapter) leaders about content development, invite top San Francisco chefs to a community-building event scheduled for next week.

message you'd like to see on a billboard:   EAT GOOD FOOD.