Julia Collins

I bring cookbooks on beach vacations.

I'm so crazy about food that I will go to the grocery store just to watch how people shop.

I'm so fascinated by it.

I knew it was my calling.

But I come from a family that's super achievement oriented.

And it was sort of like, what flavor of Dr. Banker lawyer are you going to be, Julia Elizabeth Collins?

And so what I thought that I needed to do was go to the best school.

And at that time, for me, that meant going to Harvard and studying engineering.

And I remember going to my grandpa and saying, okay, but when I graduate, I don't actually want to go into engineering.

I want to go into food.

And do you know, he

He actually cried.

A little tiny tear rolled down his beautiful face.

For a good reason, right?

He said, you might as well go pick cotton.

Because in his generation growing up, that is what you could do as a Black person.

Go work in a restaurant or you could work as a sharecropper.

And so he didn't see the association with success and food.

So what did I do?

I said, okay, let me get another degree.