Growing up on Long Island, Chef Erica Wides stocked her dollhouse with miniature foods and dishes she had carefully sculpted from colored crayons, an early expression of both her passion for food and her artistic talents. Wides initially pursued a career in photography, attending the School of Visual Arts in New York and working as a photo editor and researcher. But she found herself increasingly drawn to images of food, images that made their way into her art. "I created tableaus and sculptural representations with food," remembers Wides. "I was fascinated by the sociological and political undercurrents surrounding food." At age 25 she decided to make a career move and work with food full-time.

Wides describes her culinary education as "old-school," saying that she relied heavily on working in restaurants, including Nosmo King, Harvest, Savoy, Arcadia and several summers in Maine, in addition to studying. In 1997 she won an IACP scholarship and used it to attend a pastry and baking program at the Culinary Institute of America, where she also studied artisanal bread baking.

Travel, too, was a big part of Wides's education. She is one of ICE's experts on Asian cuisine, the result of two extended trips she took throughout Southeast Asia, backpacking it solo. Wides was particularly fascinated by the Asian street foods she came across in her travels, and would like to put her experiences, and the street-food recipes she often teaches in her recreational classes, into a book. Wides will be traveling to Asia again this spring when she heads to Singapore's at-sunrice culinary academy to teach classic European techniques to local chefs.

January, 2003