How is social media changing news?
It’s lowered the barriers to entry, making it possible for more voices and perspectives to reach an audience without going through traditional gatekeepers. But it’s also compressed the idea of a “story” into something bite-sized, scrollable, and often stripped of context. That flattening leaves less room for nuance, amplifies propaganda, and rewards speed over accuracy. The result is an attention economy where critical thinking skills erode as quickly as the feed refreshes.
How do you prefer to be pitched on stories?
I respond best to pitches that are specific, grounded, and already in conversation with my work. “Specific” means you’ve thought beyond a broad topic (“seafood sustainability”) to the exact angle or moment that makes it worth telling now. Maybe it’s a single overlooked species, a historical turning point, or a chef reinventing a tradition.
I appreciate when a pitch makes clear why I should be the one to write it. That could be because it aligns with my focus on history, culture, and the sensory experience of food, or because you’ve noticed a thread in my past work that this story could extend or challenge.
The other non-negotiable is sourcing. If you’re proposing a story that makes a claim (historical, scientific, cultural) I want to know there are credible voices and documentation behind it. Surprises are welcome; vague generalities are not.
In short: be concise but not skeletal, clear but not over-explained. Show me the story’s heartbeat, why it matters, and why it belongs in my hands
What story are you most proud of writing or working on?
A piece I wrote for Tasting Table on the disappearance of wild abalone from U.S. waters. On the surface, it’s about a rare shellfish most Americans will never eat again. But beneath that, it’s a meditation on irreversible change brought by climate shifts, ecological imbalance, and the cascading loss of species we once thought were permanent fixtures along our coasts.
For thousands of years, it sustained Indigenous communities and shaped coastal cultures. It’s a creature that clings to rock with a single muscular foot, that senses the subtlest vibration of the sea, that builds a shell so iridescent it seems like a piece of the ocean caught in solid form. Today, finding one in the wild feels more like unearthing a fossil than spotting a living animal.
Writing this story meant holding two truths at once: that abalone’s beauty and cultural significance endure, and that in many places, the living animals are gone. It’s a swan song for a species as much as a call to pay attention, to see that our dinner plates are linked to the warming of the oceans, the collapse of kelp forests, and the disappearance of beings that don’t make headlines.
What's your favorite drink?
Dirty vodka martini.
Aside from your own, what's your favorite publication to read?
Gastronomica has been out of print for over a decade, but I still think of it as the gold standard for food writing. It treated food as a cultural text; something you could examine through anthropology, history, art, and politics as easily as through recipes. You could open an issue and find a photographic essay on Soviet canteens alongside an analysis of kitchen design in postwar America, or a meditation on the sound of chopping onions.
What made it singular wasn’t just the breadth of its topics, but the seriousness with which it treated them. Food wasn’t a niche interest or lifestyle accessory; it was a lens through which to think about everything from colonial trade routes to personal memory. Even in its most academic pieces, there was room for sensory detail and narrative, inspiring my belief that rigorous research and beautiful, tasteful writing don’t have to be at odds. I still return to its archives, both for research and for the reminder that food media can stretch far beyond service journalism.
