Hello all. I am a college senior at Hamilton College in Clinton, NY USA, and I am writing this post to try and obtain some resources for a fellowship proposal that I am writing. My proposal idea is to visit the Netherlands and the Netherlands Antilles/ Aruba to study Dutch food culture and the Dutch influence on the food of the Antilles/Aruba. My inspiration for this project stems from my visits to Curacao, Aruba, & the Netherlands and my experiences with "Keshi Yena" and "Funchi."

If I am awarded the fellowship, I will be given the funds to spend a year abroad doing the travel and research indicated in my proposal. First, I would like to visit the Netherlands to study Dutch food culture in its entirety. Then I would like to travel to the Netherlands and explore Dutch Antillean food culture. My research will be through active participation- apprenticing in restaurants, working with home cooks, working in markets and bakeries, talking to locals, etc.

If anybody could provide me with any resources that could help in my research, I would greatly appreciate it. For example: concrete ideas of what to study, important people to talk to, specific events to attend, places to apprentice, places to travel to, cultural information, etc. would all be very helpful.

I can best be reached at email at ovargo@hamilton.edu. I am available and would love to talk willing to help via Skype.

Thank you all for your time,

Olivia