US News

Cuisine lover savored US life

The petite Boston University grad student killed at the marathon was a fun-loving foodie who posted pictures of her meals online to assure her family back in China she was eating well.

‘‘My wonderful breakfast,’’ statistics major Lu Lingzi (pictured), 23, wrote on one photo of bread, fruit and vegetables.

She posted the item just hours before two bombs ripped through the crowds at the Boston Marathon’s finish line Monday.

Lu proudly displayed her home-cooked meals on the Chinese social-networking site Weibo.

They included a blueberry-covered waffle and a spinach sacchettini with zucchini.

Lu was watching the marathon Monday with two of her friends when she was killed by one of the homemade bombs.

“It’s really hard,” said a friend and classmate, Lu Zhang, 24. “I still can’t believe it. We just finished a class and no one was sitting at her desk. People who were really close to her were dressed in black, just to be close to her.”

In Lu’s hometown, a neighbor expressed his grief.

“I saw her grow up, and a few scenes from the past are flashing through my mind,” Zhang Xinbo, Lu’s former neighbor in the northeastern Chinese city of Shenyang, said in an online tribute.

“Now, she’s becoming a girl, a bit Westernized, but a loud bang has changed everything. I think of her loved ones, and I don’t know how they are coping with this painful news, while still searching for any thread of hope.’’