phuuds 2.0

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hello friends —

welcome to the first phuuds issue, where i plan to semi-regularly muse about the noodles i’m noodling on. i’ve added you to this newsletter because well, i am a social creature and need an audience (read: external validation) to stay motivated. no pressure to stay subscribed but you should know that i’ll know that you unsubscribed.

if you decide to stay, you can expect the following to be covered in each of these dispatches: a recent food experiment, a moodboard, shoutouts, and a badly-done meme by yours truly (just trying to stay relevant).

this one is a little special because it’s my first one so it’s got some brief history of my personal food journey and some emotional self-conscious millennial bullshit.

hope you enjoy.

<3 lara

a brief history

most people know me for things like this:

i cooked this ridiculously dank chicken paitan ramen last year in collaboration with gordy. it involved pressure cooking a chicken til its bones were soft enough to put in a blender. and then i pressed it’s mushed up body through a wire strainer until i got all the gristly bits out.

i love to cook food and i love it even more if there’s an enthusiastic audience. i’ve been doing this for awhile, and lackadaisically documenting things on tumblr (if you want recipes they’re here) at first, and now on IG.

for most of my working life, food was relegated to a personal passion. a few years ago, i decided to bring it into my professional aspirations (thanks, MBA). i decided to double down on food and environment. i even started posting on medium #thoughtleadership.

a couple of highlights from the grad school playground:

learning about sustainable coffee production in colombia

interviewing oat growers in Montana

prototyping a pop up farmer’s market kitchen with soulcycle cult mechanics

early sketches for my thesis on meat attachment

the post grad school vision was to get a job at a foodtech company like Impossible Foods, Perfect Day, or Ideo Food Lab. but then covid hit and i took a detour to work on testing and vaccinations at Curative. i was thankful to have a meaningful job that directly helped get us to where we are today, which is to say — no longer sheltering-in-place but vaxed-and-waxed.

time to get a little emojonal

so i quit my job a month ago.

cue existential crisis ill-disguised as a hot girl summer. a lot of friends have been very supportive in affirming me that it’s OK to spend the next chunk of time just playing volleyball and painting my nails and i don’t have to be one of these tech lords who is casually starting a growth stage company in my spare time. and i was like, 🆒 that sounds 🆒 i’m 🆒 with just doing summer camp indefinitely and not having a life purpose i exercise on a daily basis sure 🆒 🆒 🆒.

but a few weeks ago, i went on a little bike ride with a friend who reminded me that just because i’m not going to start the next impossible foods (or even get hired by them lol) doesn’t mean i’m worthless. i like designing performative food experiences and i like drumming up business ideas. it’s just been a weird year and i took a pretty big hiatus from thinking about this stuff to work on covid.

phuuds 2.0

introducing phuuds 2.0.

by the end of the summer, i’ll have picked a food product idea to carry forward and maybe even manufacture a small batch of it with a brand, business model, and personality. it doesn’t have to save the world, it doesn’t have to scale, and it doesn’t have to go anywhere beyond the concepting phase. some more constraints include:

📋 Constraints

• The product will be in the food & beverage category

• We will not limit our ingredients based on personal issues (e.g. garlic and onions are allowed)

• The product must taste dank (must be delicious)

🗻 Principles & Aspirations

• Bias towards shorter iteration cycles (i.e. alcohol is not off the table but we need to be aware that the fermentation process is lengthy)

• Bias towards something new (i.e. we could rebrand apple juice, but that's less exciting to us than coming up with a creative new product)

• Bias towards plant-based, but not a requirement

• This doesn't have to save the world (i.e. we don't need to perform an LCA)

• This doesn't have to make money

lea, our resident woman in STEM and trendsetter, has generously offered her time to experiment in the kitchen with me and we came up with these constraints. i could use some taste testers and thought partners, so if you’re interested in collaborating please let me know!

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what’s next?

kelp is kween. stay tuned. or unsubscribe.

shout outs

@elliott — thanks for that bike ride and reminding me i could do this
@zhenya, mark, and faina — thx for inspiring me throughout sloan and beyond
@paul — for holding me accountable to building in public
@wy — for always knowing when to be a bucket for my trash feelings and when to challenge me

asks

• what food things are you obsessing about right now?

• what are you reading about food?

• do you have better ideas for newsletter design / content? i’m a n00b and would love any and all feedback

• my logo / banner sucks. want to help me redesign it?

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meme time