Acclaimed Writer Molly O’Neill to Speak at Vassar College

POUGHKEEPSIE, N.Y. (January 18, 2005) — Renowned chef, author, and New York Times writer Molly O'Neill will read from and discuss her new memoir, We Would Be Heroes: Baseball, Apple Pie, and the Excavation of the American Dream, on Thursday, January 27, at 5:30 p.m. in the Students' Building of Vassar College.

In her Matthew Vassar lecture, O'Neill will explore central questions of her engaging new work: To what extent are people the product of their family's stories, and to what degree do they define themselves against theses stories, "Americans are often accused of having no sense of history," writes O'Neill, in her hilarious, poignant and highly indignant account of growing up in Columbus, Ohio with five younger brothers. "But from the time we took our first steps, my brothers and I were practically staggering under the weight of two competing family mythologies."

As O'Neill explains in We Would Be Heroes, her parents met in the middle of the century, in the middle of the country. They told themselves that they wanted nothing more than a brood of healthy children and a well-mowed lawn, but they'd each been raised on grander visions. He was a third generation ball player who pitched in the minor leagues. She came from an aristocratic milling family that traced itself back to the Virginia colony. They could only afford the smallest house on the block, but with a backyard for batting practice and several hundred pounds of heirloom silver, anything seemed possible.
O'Neill is best known as the food columnist for the New York Times Sunday Magazine and a reporter for the newspaper's "Style' section She has also hosted "Great Food," a weekly TV series co-produced by BBC and PBS.

After graduating from Denison University in 1975, O'Neill went on to study cooking at the University of Vienna in Austria and earn a culinary graduate degree from La Varenne in Paris. Twelve years ago she began writing professionally, first as a columnist at Boston Magazine, then at Food and Wine Magazine. In 1984, she became the restaurant critic for New York Newsday, moving to New York Times in 1989.

O'Neill is the author of three cookbooks: the New York Cookbook (1991), A Well-Seasoned Appetite (1995), and The Pleasure of Your Company (1997). Both The New York Cookbook and A Well-Seasoned Appetite won the James Beard award, and the New York Cookbook also won the Julia Child/IACP (International Association of Culinary Professionals) award. She received the Bon Appetit America's Food Hall of Fame award in 1998 and the James Beard Lifetime Achievement Award in 1999.

For more information, please call Judith Nichols, Associate Professor of English, at (845) 437-5656. Individuals with disabilities requiring accommodations should contact Cathy Jennings at (845) 437-5370.

Vassar College is a highly selective, coeducational, independent, residential, liberal arts college founded in 1861.

Individuals with disabilities requiring accommodations or information on accessibility should contact Campus Activities Office at (845) 437-5370. Without sufficient notice, appropriate space and/or assistance may not be available.

Vassar College is a highly selective, coeducational, independent, residential liberal arts college founded in 1861.

This article was posted on Tuesday, January 18th, 2005.