Emily Chandler ’06

I have always had a passion for food and I brought that with me when I began at Wesleyan. Even though I majored in art, the work I did in school helped prepare me to manage an Italian deli.

I studied food most directly at Wes starting with a freshman seminar called Food and Culture taught by John Finn. It was my first semester and I was already in a forum with other students who were interested in food, its history and what it can reveal about a society. That semester I was also in Renaissance Prints and Introduction to Art History with John Paoletti where I studied, among other things, the importance of the Medici family in Florence and their influence internationally. I enrolled in Italian classes which allowed me to study in Rome (my forte was, and still is, how to order in a restaurant). Living in Rome was also an amazing experience that I think back to whenever I describe to my customers how Italians really eat.

Outside of my course work, I found the freedom and resources to continue my own research about food. I drew a weekly comic for the Argus called Food Stuff which connected two themes for me: art and food. Between academic years I made goat cheese for Coach Farms in New York State and tofu at The Bridge in Middletown. During all four years at Wesleyan I did catering work at the President’s house and during my senior year I started working at Weshop, which I loved. I don’t think many students working at Weshop found it directly relevant to their future career, but it gave me the experience that I needed to get my next job.

After I graduated in 2006 I began working at the Bedford Cheese Shop in Brooklyn, New York while I looked for art related jobs. I soon decided that I didn’t like any of my art related career options so I hunkered down at the cheese shop and stayed there for two years. I found that I really liked working in specialty food retail and I absorbed an incredible amount of information about cheese and how to run a small business while I was there. From the beginning, I tried to learn how to manage the store because I thought that I could position myself to manage a second location or manage for another business. I never dreamt that starting my own store was in the near future.

However, in July 2008, I left the Bedford Cheese Shop and moved to Easton, Maryland to open Piazza Italian Market, which I own with my parents, Jeff Chandler and Donna Morea ’76. It took almost five months from signing the lease to opening the doors (You can read some of the details on the store blog www.piazzaitalianmarket.wordpress.com. We have been open for almost nine months now and although we have a regular customer base we continue to see new customers every day!

We wanted to open a gourmet food store on Maryland’s Eastern Shore because we felt that there was a sophisticated community that had no local source for gourmet food. The Eastern Shore has long been a weekend home for Washington, D.C., Baltimore, and Philadelphia residents who either forgo the specialty foods they are accustomed to or they bring their groceries with them every weekend. Because of my connection with Italian culture, I wanted to provide the community with high quality groceries that are easily found in Italy. I make an effort to stock regional specialties and I sample them out to keep my customers and staff excited about new things. That principle of bringing authentic foods to our customers extends through our selection of olives, cheeses, meats, salami, olive oils, vinegars, cookies, preserves, wines, prepared foods, and fresh bread. I try to order items that are made by smaller-scale, artisanal producers, some of whom we have met personally. Not all of our customers are familiar with things like prosciutto or fontina and they enjoy getting an introduction by way of eating our panini.

I think that it is too early to say what is next for me, a second store seems like a natural next step but more than that, I can’t say. I would love to buy salami or cheeses from a Wes alum, but so far, I don’t know anybody doing this.

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