From the Capital-Gazette:
Its been 12 years since Davidsonville native Nick Bender
graduated from South River High School.
Then he was the talented frontman for the
local award-winning band Xanthematic. He also wrote song lyrics and one-act
plays, plus acted in and directed drama productions at South River. Since
leaving high school, Bender, now 30, has graduated from three colleges.
He wanted to develop his talents as a
musician and thespian to become a professional actor. He headed to the American
Academy of Dramatic Arts, one of the oldest acting schools in the world, at its
East Coast location in New York.
Though he completed his studies there and
earned a two-year associate degree in acting in 2007, Bender decided acting was
not the stage for his talents. He returned to Anne Arundel County five years
later and earned a bachelor’s degree in liberal arts at St. John’s College.
To support himself while in school,
he turned to waiting tables. He found himself drawn into the world of food
culture, preparation and presentation. He earned the level one sommelier
certification from the Court of Master Sommeliers in 2013.
Eventually, he returned to school a third
time to earn a master’s degree in food studies in 2017 at Chatham University’s
Falk School of Sustainability and Environment in Pittsburgh. The program,
Bender said, “focused on the sociology and culture of food and its ingredients.”
While in grad school, he worked with world-famous chef Ferran Adrià, founder of
El Bulli, a three-star Michelin restaurant near the town of Roses in Catalonia,
Spain. Bender was a research assistant for Adrià, focusing on beverages for the
encyclopedia.
While in grad school, he conducted research
on food design anthology, including how restaurant spaces can use cutlery and
serviceware like knives, flatware and plates to engage the diner in
conversation about food systems and where the food they will be served comes
from.
“This is high gastronomy,” Bender said.
“It’s primarily about restaurants that are Michelin-rated and offer 30 or more
courses.”
He was awarded an Albert Schweitzer
Fellowship while in grad school. During 2015 and 2016, he worked with senior
citizens to improve their eating habits. At St. John’s, he traveled to Iceland
in 2009 and met his future wife, Eir Rovira, who is half Icelandic and half
Spanish. They hit it off.
They dated long distance until she moved to
Maryland to attend Anne Arundel Community College.
When Bender moved to Pittsburgh to attend
Chatham and was working in the university’s marketing department, Rovira
discovered she had cancer. She returned to Barcelona, Spain, for treatment and
to be with her family.
The couple finally married in April 2017 and
moved to Barcelona in June. In July, he designed a machine that converts paper
waste from pizzerias into charcoal for the pizza ovens. The project earned him
second place in the Pizza Experience portion of the Desita Award contest, an
international competition based in Rome. Bender also founded his own food
design firm in July, called Square 41.
In August, he and his bride began their
“honeymoon around the world,” which included stops in Hong Kong, Japan’s Honshu
island, Hawaii and Puerto Rico.
On their return, he
accepted a position in November as a dining room manager at a one-star Michelin
restaurant — the Hoja Santa in Barcelona. In his rare spare time, he books a
flight to another town in Europe to sit down at a top-notch restaurant, put a
napkin in his lap and order a world-class meal.
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