Alumni Profile
A delicious career path
In a magazine-writing class, Sarah Copeland got a tasty assignment: Profile a professor moonlighting as a pastry chef at Cherry Street Wine Cellar.
A few years later, Copeland, BJ ’99, found herself juggling paperwork as a photo editor in New York when she remembered that pastry chef. “I was missing the creativity that I had in school,” she says. “I found it in the kitchen.”
Soon after, Copeland moved to France for additional culinary training, which helped her find work as the private chef for a St. Tropez villa. As a sort of culinary audition, she prepared a seven-course tasting menu or “fantasy meal” for the villa’s owners.
The day of the audition saw a massive snowstorm that shut down the East Coast. Copeland trudged 30 minutes home from the grocery store with $700 worth of gourmet food in her backpack. Her sheer persistence — plus the remarkable meal — landed her the job.
After two seasons at the villa, Copeland moved back to New York for another plum position, working as a recipe developer and chef for the Food Network. This earned her an appearance on the Fine Living Network program I Want Your Job. The show chronicles “typical” work days of Porsche test drivers, wine reviewers and ski instructors.
The Sept. 2, 2007, episode tailed Copeland through a day of testing recipes, styling food and working behind the scenes on the Food Network’s Iron Chef America. Copeland shared the episode’s spotlight with a hydroplane racer. — Lisa Groshong
For recipe developer Sarah Copeland, the walk to her job at the Food Network often includes a stop at this New York City farmers market. Photo by Andras Gipp.