This week we caught up with Chris Luft, a multiple subject credential candidate in the Teacher Education Program. (Note this 5?s format is taken from one of the School's internal communications, and is meant to help the Gevirtz community get to know itself better.)
GGSE: Who (living or dead) do you most admire?
Luft: Recent hobbies have given rise to a great deal of respect to the countless thousand who, at their own peril, brought food science to the place where it is today. It feels like there’s a nice overlap between the ongoing inertia of culture in both the realm of preparing and preserving food and generational education. Someone had some wacky ideas and now we have pizza, kombucha and a halfway decent idea of what mushrooms are pretty good to go and which ones are going to give you a bad time. Thank you.
GGSE: What is your favorite place in Santa Barbara?
Luft: Most anywhere along the coast below the waterline. Kelp is a plus, fish is a double plus, a couple of legal lobster is a super plus. Baby halibut hiding in the sands off the shore of Gaviota beach is pretty much all time. I love admiring the beaches as much as the next person, but our unique underwater scene is what really keeps me in this town.
GGSE: When (besides now) would you like to live?
Luft: I don't know if it would be a particularly fancy time to live but it’d be a real thing to see a major shipping channel, such as Liverpool, during the height of sailing commerce. Watching ten thousand people at working moving hundreds of ships through the channel would be a tremendous spectacle.
GGSE: Where (besides Santa Barbara) would you want to live if money/job were not an issue?
Luft: If you’re offering I wouldn’t turn down a year or two or more of sailing abroad. I love having a little bubble of my own space but I would be entirely amiable to the scenery outside shifting.
GGSE: Why do you do the job you do?
Luft: You know it’s a little like baking. It’s nice to put a little love into something you’re passionate about and sharing it with the people you care about. Lots of late nights and early mornings but when it all comes together it’s a real marvel of a good time. Teaching, lately, has felt a little like that for me. It’s a good feeling.