Chin said his favorite thing to make is something that involves his entire family: dumplings.

“We’ll just all sit around the kitchen table and make these dumplings together,” he said. “It’s not so much about the food but more about the community.”

According to his sister, sophomore Vanessa Chin, Ian cooks breakfast, lunch and dinner for his family about four days a week. One of her favorite meals he makes is made from lamb shanks and called ossobuco, which in Italian means “bone with a hole.”

Anna McColgan, Chin’s friend and co-worker at The Food Project, said that she really enjoys his flatbreads although she does not always know what the ingredients are.

“Sometimes he just gives me food, I eat it, and I don’t think about what I’m eating,” she said.

Along with being involved in his cooking, his family, specifically his mother, encouraged Chin to apply to The Food Project.

“If you have ever heard of the battle cry of the tiger mom, my mom is most definitely not a tiger mom,” Chin said. “This is the best tiger mom move she’s ever made.”

According to Chin, in 2009, his mother bought a CSA share from The Food Project and found out about the program. The Food Project focuses on “social justice, the food system, and the bond between the two.”

According to McColgan, also an agricultural intern, The Food Project works with hunger relief organizations as well.

Although cooking and making food is not directly part of the curriculum at The Food Project, the people in the program come together around food, according to McColgan.

“We have all this produce that we grow, and it’s like, what are you going to do with it? You’re going to make a bunch of really good food, and Ian’s the guy who’s going to tell you how to do it,” she said.

Through The Food Project, Chin has gotten multiple opportunities involving his culinary skills. In an auction at The Food Project, he auctioned two dinners and raised $12,000, according to Chin. He also made lunch for Deval Patrick with McColgan.

“My boss just called me up one day and he goes, ‘Hey Ian, you wanna cook for Deval Patrick?’” Chin said.

McColgan said that, although she is not the same kind of cook that Chin is, she helped him make the lunch and learned by doing so.

“It’s not necessarily that he teaches people how to cook,” McColgan said. “It’s more that, by cooking with him, people are able to learn.”

Chin said that he takes his cooking very seriously and is working to improve and advance his cooking career.

“This year and last year have been extremely productive for me,” Chin said, “because I’ve started to actually take my cooking into the big leagues.”

 Lily Bohlke can be contacted at bhs.sagamore.com