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Engaging Students |
Steve Siwinski
B.A. Television, '06
Nourishing Experiences
Steve Siwinski is a free spirit. He’s known to everyone on campus from his frequent appearances on the college’s in-house television network, Frequency TV, where he hosts his own cooking program, "Back Burner." With contagious culinary passion, Steve gallops across his kitchen, spatula in hand, doling out equal portions of cooking advice and wit while whipping up a chunky monkey soy shake or a veggie frittata that would make mom proud. Steve’s love for food began early—from lying on his grandma’s floor watching "The Frugal Gourmet" on PBS to noshing corn dogs at the amusement park next door. His family owned a resort in central Indiana, where Steve spent summers working at the nearby amusement park as first mate on the riverboat. “When I wasn’t floating on the river,” he reminisces, “I was announcing the water-skiing show.” A couple of years ago, Steve’s parents—who are, by their own son’s loving admission, a bit eccentric—sold the family resort and bought a 100-year-old church. They had an Amish buggy carted in to fill up space in the corner of the living room-qua-sanctuary, and in the ultimate act of secularization, they replaced the stained-glass window where Jesus had tended his lambs with a 52-inch big-screen TV. It will come in handy for watching the progression of their son’s career. “The backdrop of Chicago fuels me,” he says, but it’s more than just good food. It’s the diversity I find all around me.” Today, Steve has an internship with WTTW-channel 11, as a researcher for Ramsey Lewis’s new "Legends of Jazz" series. He is student producer with Semaphore Media, working on "Check, Please!," one of the Chicago PBS station’s most popular shows. There, he helps food critic Alpana Singh telecast her in-depth, roundtable reviews of Chicago eateries. The job at WTTW is a natural fit for Steve, who channels his joy for life and his love for cooking into his own popular show on campus. Chicago’s dynamic restaurant scene not only keeps Steve well fed, it also nourishes his passion. With metaphors that betray his fascination with food, Steve explains that he “grew up in a white-bread, cookie-cutter community. Here at Columbia, I make my own experiences. I grasp them by the neck." “At Columbia,” he says, “I find different flavors, different foods from different cultures that a water-ski announcer from a small town in Indiana couldn’t discover in many other places.
Photography by Jonathan Greene, '05
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