Izzy's Cafe

I haven't been able to post regularly for the past few months because I have been going through application infierno. Business schools are "special" in that many of them feel the need to require an inhumane amount of essays, with topics that are unique to each school. The questions tend to veer on the bizarrely personal, and if I have to do anymore self-reflecting I think my head might implode. I do think it's interesting that the topic of food has managed to make its way into quite a few essays (I think maybe 6 out of 25? not bad). As such, I thought I'd share one bizarrely personal aspect of myself with you! See the intro to one essay below.

The summer when I was six years old, my house was filled with relatives visiting from Taiwan. Although barely able to read (or speak English for that matter), I already had a passion for cooking. I noticed that more than anything, save perhaps mah jong, my family loved to eat. Identifying this excess (or, rather, unlimited) demand and restricted daytime supply, I started my first venture into the wild world of commerce: "Izzy's Cafe," a daytime deli on wheels, complete with a full menu of breakfast sandwiches, juices, and my personal culinary feat: rice, bananas, and soy sauce. Izzy's Cafe also proved to be my first magnificent flop -- my grandfather was my only paying customer, and my techniques of extortion on my poor-credit non-paying customers (mainly my brother and cousin Bang Bang) proved fruitless. Apparently, "I'm telling" is not really an effective business ploy. This failure, however, set the stage for a lifetime of nonprofit food sharing to come...