As Suzanne Sepe arches over the kitchen counter in her New Haven, Conn., home, grinding black pepper on grass-fed lamb drizzled with yogurt cilantro sauce, Yale Law student Khalil Tawil interrupts. “Try this,” he says, producing a Ziploc bag of fragrant coriander, cumin and cloves from his backpack. “My mother’s Lebanese spice mix.”

Image: Yale students Jason Gilliland (left) and Khalil Tawil (right) and Hallie Meyer (not pictured) partnered with Iraqi immigrant Ahlam in her New Haven, Conn., kitchen to deliver home-cooked meals to the local community through their culinary startup Umi, which was awarded $15,000 of seed funding by Yale’s Entrepreneurial Institute. Photo by Morgan Ione Yeager.