Simmie Berman (35)

Rockville, MD

Mechanical Engineer

• Simmie is a self-taught cook. She loved cooking as a kid, but she didn’t start cooking regularly until she became an adult and started working. She says she used cooking as a creative outlet from her extremely technical job.

• Her passion is baking, but she makes a mean latke and delicious sweet noodle kugel. 

• She says that because she is an engineer she likes precision, which is why she likes to bake – she says baking is a science. 

• She was adopted from Korea, but she says that ever since she was a little kid she’s been very passionate about Hanukkah, and not “chrismafying” it. In fact she loaths the term “Hanukkah bush.”

• Her best memories of Hanukkah are her mom buying her a new dreidel every year to add to her collection, as well as FaceTiming her every night when she and her family light the menorah.