A Recipe for Living: Author and Chef Caroline Wright ’05

Caroline Wright has a recipe for everything: soup, cakes, Catalan cuisine, and most of all, resilience. The prolific cookbook author, food writer, and entrepreneur brings a signature blend of drive and creativity to every challenge—including surviving terminal brain cancer while raising two young children. She thrives by serving her family and community with nourishing flavors, imagination, and abundance.

Wright grew up in Chicago and Orlando, in a “food family” of sorts–her mother, a casual dining executive, turned family outings into lessons in hospitality and restaurant experience. Drawn to the arts and theater, Wright initially applied to colleges for acting and English; when these plans didn’t materialize, she was undeterred and looked beyond traditional paths to explore opportunities abroad. “There is always a different way to get from point A to B,” she says.

Having studied some French, Wright found her way to AUP, where her inherent independent streak flourished. She recalls “making my way at 18, speaking French, bootstrapping all of it,” while forging international friendships and absorbing the vibrancy of Paris. Walking to school, she often passed through Rue Cler and its bounty of boulangeries, fromageries, and wine and produce shops, deepening her passion for ingredients and cooking.

Wright credits her time at AUP and studies in comparative literature and film for burnishing her writing skills, work ethic, and ability to work on deadlines. She decided to combine her capacities with her love of food by becoming a food writer and pursued culinary school, earning a spot at the prestigious La Varenne Cooking School in Burgundy—which admits two students annually—in part from her French language ability.

These days, Wright is focused on her soup business, which sprang from the generosity of neighbors who filled a cooler on her porch with jars of soup during her cancer treatment. She chronicled this kindness–and the recipes—in the cookbook Soup Club, and now delivers soup directly to members, reserving a portion for cancer patients in treatment centers. “I experienced the idea I had always written about: that food is love. Through the love I gave and received, I was restored.” Reflecting this community spirit, Soup Club’s sequel, Seconds, was printed by Seattle’s Girlie Press and is available only through Wright’s local bookstore.

Wright is also writing more children’s books and a memoir and embraces every day. “It's been healing to gather people around the most loving and wonderful parts of my cancer. I don’t think about it as a challenge,” she says. Instead, she makes soup, bread, and nine dozen cookies a week, and cherishes that “my kids are growing up in a house that smells like chocolate chip cookies.” She credits both cancer and AUP for the autonomy and self-belief that have served her as a writer, business owner, and mother. “I'm grateful for it.”