A Hunger for Learning

What were you doing when you were 22? Timothy Harlan 94M owned his own French bistro in Athens, Georgia. "I grew up with food," he says. "I was making my own taffy when I was 8 or 9. You could start working at restaurants very young where I lived and it was a natural progression to own my own place." With its nouvelle cuisine style, his restaurant was on the forefront of the wave of places like The Fat Duck in Berkshire, England. "We did very basic French country, traditional sauces," he says. "Chicken kiev, good old bistro, quality soups. We were early day seasonal."

He regularly drove into Atlanta for superior bread for his customers. But despite his commitment, "it just didn't become the success I wanted it to be, and wasn't going to turn into a career financially. But I loved the experience. I also realized I wanted to go to college."

Learning how to follow through was a valuable lesson when, having been immersed in health care through a friend's illness, he realized he was interested in the medical field. Harlan started college at Emory and went through medical school, helping to put himself through with his professional skills. "I was part of a small catering business, and we served the arts community, doing our share of gallery openings," he says.

He valued his time in medical school. "From a clinical standpoint, the education we received was phenomenal," he says. "Being able to train where we were able to, learning from master clinicians, it's the preparation you dream of."

Decades ago, Harlan wrote a book on healthy eating, It's Heartly Fare. Still in print today, his cookbook's success led to some on-air work, including consulting for the Cooking Network's Cooking Thin and his own show, Dr. Gourmet, which would win an Emmy for excellence in medical programming. "It was exciting and fun to help teach others something you love," he says. "Far more people can prepare healthy dishes if they give themselves a chance."

Harlan is known for his work in culinary medicine and has been executive director of George Washington University's Culinary Medicine Program and previous executive director of the Goldring Center for Culinary Medicine at Tulane University. He helped launch the American College of Culinary Medicine. The ACCM offers the Health Meets Food courseware, teaching medical students how to teach others about cooking and eating healthy. Today, the courseware is at roughly 60 academic medical centers across the country, he says.