When Veronika Zwicke is not busy working on her degree, mentoring business students, serving as the president of the American Marketing Association or working for Seattle University Public Safety, she is blogging about her latest food endeavors.

Veronika Zwicke, the founder and chef of Zwicked Kitchen.

Zwicke is a fourth-year studying marketing and management at Seattle U’s Albers School of Business and Economics. This past summer, Zwicke launched her food blog “Zwicked Kitchen” purely out of boredom. She said the idea sparked at her internship where she worked on blog competitive analysis projects. Zwicke realized the potential of combining her new insight on the blog industry and her passion for food.

“I like to cook. I like to make cookies, I like to bake brownies and I like to make a lot of pasta. I’m making all this food, so why not just post it and see if I can get famous enough to drop out of college,” she said.

Zwicke’s approach to her blog is personal. In each of her posts, she shares a short anecdote with her audience. These little snippets give readers a glimpse of who she is, and to provide a story as to why Zwicke is making these recipes. Zwicke also tries to keep her audience in mind as she is creating and posting these recipes by ensuring they are simple and easy to make.

“In my house, there’s always somebody cooking. I love it,” Zwicke said. “My mother is from Germany so I like to post Käsespätzle, a cheesy macaroni dish, and Goulash, a beef stew very popular in Germany. My mom cooks German food all the time, but my dad a couple years ago took some Thai cooking classes here in Seattle while he was on a business trip. He started doing all these stir-frys, all these different Thai dishes, it was so good.”

Her family not only helped develop her love of food, but they also are her main support system in her food blog journey. Zwicke’s mom helps her by sending over recipes to try and sharing her blog posts on Facebook. Her dad doesn’t have a Facebook, but he texts her to compliment her latest recipe.

Every year, Zwicke tries to make a trip out to Germany to visit her grandmother and to enjoy Germany’s cuisine. Specifically, Zwicke makes it a point to indulge in her favorite cake, Prinzregententorte, on her visits.

“Prinzregententorte is a Prince Regent’s Cake in English. It’s 13 layers of really thin sponge cake layered with a chocolate buttercream, marzipan, and dark chocolate,” Zwicke said, who savors this dessert whenever she has the opportunity.

As a child, Zwicke shared that her mom liked to cook a common meal served as “drunk food” in Germany. The ham, cheese, butter and pasta dish is called Schinkennudeln and is one of her go-to recipes.

If Zwicke were hosting a dinner party, she would have over Ina Garten, the Barefoot Contessa, Larry David—a comedian and co-creator of Seinfeld—and Ron Swanson from Parks and Recreation.

“It would just be crazy, Ina Garten would be trying to upstage everybody, Larry David would just be trying to make jokes, and Ron Swanson would just be sitting there. I would have to make some meat, some kind of pork roast but really fancy with simple ingredients,” she described.

Zwicke hopes that in the future she can avoid having to work a “real job” and just stick to writing “Zwicked Kitchen” instead. Currently, Zwicke is working in social media marketing and while she sees that continuing to be a part of her life, she does want her food blog to take off.

“I’m just happy posting my own recipes so my grandma can comment on them and call me. I’m happy where it’s at right now, if it grows, cool. If not, my grandma’s happy, she likes it,” she said.

Zwicke is excited for all that is in store for her blog and her upcoming food adventures. If you are looking to try out some German food or simple desserts to bake with your roommates this weekend, visit Veronika Zwicke’s food blog “Zwicked Kitchen” for the step-by-step recipes.

Hunter may be reached at
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