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The daughter of legendary sports agent David Falk, Daina Falk spent her early years around pro athletes. Today, her love of sports is matched only by her passion for food. As the original Hungry Fan, Daina celebrates game day cooking at its best, from pulled pork sandwiches at the tailgate to sky-high stadium chili at home.
About the Author
A passion for sports is in Daina Falk's blood.
She grew up at sporting events and around professional athletes who were clients of her father, David Falk, a pioneer of the sports agent industry. She took this passion to Duke University, where she played on the Women's Club Tennis Team and was a devoted Cameron Crazy.
While at Duke, Daina pursued two other passions - art and food. She lived in Florence and Paris and studied the arts - both fine and culinary. Taking cooking classes while immersed in European culture cemented a lifelong interest in food - both eating and cooking it. Daina came to believe that food wasn't just a hobby but was an important cultural component of a sports spectator's experience everywhere in the world.
As much as she wanted to continue to cook and eat the kinds of spectator-friendly foods she had grown up loving and enjoyed overseas, Daina quickly saw that with her college playing days over, adjustments to her favorite foods had to be made. She embarked on a journey of healthy eating, which helped her lose 60 pounds.
Returning to the United States with a new perspective, she created Hungry FanTM, a brand marrying sports, food and sports fan culture, so she could share her new perspective with fellow sports fans.
Publicly known as "The Hungry Fan®", Daina now curates the sports fan's game day experience--whether it's at home or in the parking lot (which she calls "fangating") , in the stadium or at a sports bar.
Daina shares her game day recipes, including her healthy spins on "sportsfood" (a Twitter hashtag she created) , on her HungryFan.com website, and on Celebrations.com (where she is the resident sports/fangatingTM/sportsfood expert) . She's also in demand as a celebrity cook on various television programs (Late Night with Seth Meyers and The Today Show for example) and in person for professional sports teams, for whom she also serves as a tailgating judge at special events.
When Daina isn't publishing blogs with her recipes and sports fan-related stories or doing television cooking demos, she can be seen covering major sporting events as a freelance producer and journalist. Daina has covered numerous Super Bowls as well as the 2012 Summer Olympic Games for multiple national networks (CNN, CBS and NBC) . Her segments have included informal, humanistic interviews with world-class athletes and cultural features about franchise/host cities as well as their local fan traditions, foods and drinks.
In late 2013, Daina launched her mobile app, Hungry FanTM. The app enables sports fans to easily locate concession and drink menus at over 70 ballparks, stadiums, arenas and speedways in North America.
In 2015, Daina expanded Hungry FanTM to offer her very own branded products designed to enhance the experiences and flavors of game day. The new additions incl
