We have background information and current news to share about our cousin Sarah Simpson Grandin, a member of our extended Johnson family. Sarah is the granddaughter of Dr. Frederick Orson "Fred" Johnson, great-granddaughter of Howard Alexander and Virginia McNaughton Johnson, 2x great-granddaughter of Frederick Orson “Fred” Johnson, and 3x great-granddaughter of Orson Thomas Johnson. Orson Thomas was a brother of Philip Paddelford Johnson. Sarah’s father, Michael Grandin, shared the following:

Sarah Simpson Grandin, b.January 30, 1988 in San Francisco to Ann Averill Johnson (daughter of Frederick Orson Johnson and Marilyn Harley Johnson) and Michael Henry Grandin (Henry Bishop Grandin, Jr. & Mary Daneri Grandin). Sarah is a name her parents picked and Simpson is her paternal grandmother's (Beatrice Olga Simpson) maiden name.

Sarah attended the Katherine Delmar Burke School (K-8) and San Francisco University High School where she excelled in her studies, played soccer, ran cross country (member 2002 state championship team), performed in theater, sang in musicals and choral groups and learned to be a fine cook.

She took a year off before beginning college. For the first half she worked at two fine restaurants in San Francisco and then spent most of the remaining year in Paris where she took advantage of an unexpected opportunity to be an intern at Taillevent, a classic and world-reknown Parisian restaurant where she met Olivier Pecquinard, whom she married three years later in August 2009.

Sarah and Olivier reside in Menlo Park, CA while she finishes her last two quarters (double major, honors program) at Stanford and Olivier works as a chef for Facebook.

UPDATE 17 March 2011!

Michael Grandin had more great news to share about daughter Sarah!

Lord knows, the news of late has been relentlessly downbeat. At the risk of appearing something of a braggart with respect to my recently notifying you of our son Harley's freshman year accomplishments, I am happy to share some additional good news regarding his older sister, Sarah.

Sarah is a Stanford honors candidate and has just been awarded a Fulbright Scholarship to spend the next academic year in Paris researching/studying/writing about French gastronomic criticism in France’s modern intellectual history through an examination of the food guide, from its birth in the 18th-century up to the present day. She'll be taking classes at Sorbonne IV and l’Institut Européen de l’Histoire et la Culture de l’Alimentation (IEHCA) (European Institute on the History and Culture of Food) in Tours and doing research at the Bibliothèque Nationale, the Bibliothèque Historique de la Ville de Paris, and the Archives Nationales. At the conclusion of her project she intends to submit her work for publication in the interdisciplinary food journal, Gastronomica.

I have her personal and grant purpose statements, if anyone is interested.

Bon appetit!

Michael

Congratulations, Sarah, on receiving the Fulbright Scholarship! We know you will do well in Paris. Family members can send their congratulations and best wishes to Sarah by her father Michael at mgrandin(at)sbcglobal(dot)net.