Elena Abou Mrad

A NYC-based Food Poet

Hello! My name is Elena and I'm from Italy. My dad is Lebanese (hence the last name) and my mom is from Southern Italy, but I grew up in Bra, a small town in Piedmont (North-West), in the middle of a gorgeous wine region.

I grew up surrounded by food: my region is famous for wine, cheese, and hazelnuts...did you know that Nutella was invented there? My mom is a great cook and I started helping her when I was very very very young, as you can see in the picture (I still don't know why my parents trusted me with a knife).

According to my parents, I started composing poems before I could even write. Whwn I lived Italy, I won several national and international poetry competitions. Here in New York, I took part in a couple of poetry open mics at Bowery Poetry. My friends started calling me a "food poet", because I always talk about food! And here's how I decided the theme for this blog.

Food Poetry is my final project for Prof. Patrick Smyth's Software Development Lab, Spring 2020 at CUNY Graduate Center.