Food for Thought with FEAST Food Tour’s Experience Specialist Caroline Brown
Written by Meg Seitz · Photography by Julia Fay
Here’s some good, warm food for thought: What’s the most important meal to you?
It’s a good question. So much so that Caroline Brown created an anthology of her friends’ and family’s responses as a final project in college.
So, as the designer of the anthology what was her response? {Continued below}
“Pasta Roni® Parmesan Cheese Flavored Angel Hair Pasta Mix,” she shares, with a laugh – and the rest of the story. “When I was little, both my parents worked full-time, so my mom would pull out that box of Pasta Roni, and then throw in frozen shrimp with it for dinner – that meal was my favorite.”
“When I was little, both my parents worked full-time, so my mom would pull out that box of Pasta Roni, and then throw in frozen shrimp with it for dinner – that meal was my favorite.”
So favorite that Brown requested it for her eighth birthday party. Her mother graciously obliged; making boxes and boxes of the boxed pasta mix to feed over a dozen friends and family.
“My mom was a great home cook,” Brown gushes. “So, I’m sure she was embarrassed to be making this boxed pasta for her family and in-laws.”
It’s a great story that deserves a rightful place in the anthology; but the important magic is hidden in the story’s legacy today.
“Even now, I have an emergency box of boxed Pasta Roni Parmesan Cheese Flavored Angel Hair Pasta in the back of my pantry,” Brown admits lovingly. It’s an important meal for Brown. It’s special and personal; and it’s just got a really good story.
We all have a meal like that.
Which proves that our connection to food is emotional and strong – as well as timeless.
Brown’s work as Experience Specialist for FEAST Food Tours allows her the opportunity to help support, manage and create similar connections with food here in the QC.
With six walking, food tours across five, Charlotte neighborhoods, FEAST Food Tours is in the business of creating memorable food experiences that connect the people of Charlotte to the city’s culinary community. With over 15 years in the event planning industry, Kristi Martin founded FEAST in 2012. Brown joined the team in 2016.
“Food is one of those really integral parts of our lives,” Brown shares. “Because a lot of important relationships with people, places, experiences, and cultures happen around food and around a table.”
She was the right hire at the right time for the growing, food tour business. After graduating from Davidson College in 2014 with an English major and a French minor, Brown tried to find the right fit in the food industry. She served as an apprentice for a local farm; then, made coffee as a barista; then, worked in marketing for the Davidson Farmers’ Market. Then, ironically, it was a job with a small investment firm that proved how she would figure out her fit in the food business.
“I was working for the firm doing event and travel planning,” she recalls. “I found out that I really loved the event planning side of it.”
Today, Brown’s role with FEAST is event planning skill at its finest. Her work is logistics-heavy; she’s not only overseeing the vendor relations, collaboration and communication, but also managing the experience of the actual tours. Each tour covers as many as six restaurants in three hours, many of which serve a small plate and/or beverage unique to their concept. FEAST’s team will design and manage custom and private events, as well. Regardless of experience, food is always the centerpiece – as it should be.
“Food is one of those really integral parts of our lives,” Brown shares. “Because a lot of important relationships with people, places, experiences, and cultures happen around food and around a table.”
But, what exactly makes food important is a different conversation – and it’s best told and heard by those who are present to a food experience that is about to unfold.
Which is why Brown’s role is to make sure guests are experiencing FEAST’s first and strongest core value – to connect guests with the chef, owner, and/or manager to learn more about business.
“The guests want to know who’s making their food, and the chef wants to share their passion,” Brown shares. “In that sense, I’m really in the business of sharing other peoples’ stories around food.”
Which is ironically how she got started in food to begin with.
Meet the Author: Meg Seitz is the Founder and Managing Creative Partner of toth shop, an agency with one goal: Elevate your brand’s content through powerful writing, creativity, and strategy. She also serves as an Adjunct Professor with Queens University and Founding Partner of the children’s book series, “Bea is for Business”.
She’s an English major with an MBA, so she can talk Homer’s “The Odyssey” just as well as she can talk sunk costs – though she’d much prefer the former.
Meet the photographer: Julia Murray, owner of Julia Fay Photography, feels most at home behind a camera with a story to tell on the other side. Her business began during her sophomore year of college, while majoring in radio and tv broadcasting. Now residing in Charlotte NC, she primarily shoots weddings and other local small businesses like her own. Her favorite part about her job is the connection it brings between art and people.
