Feature and Essay Writing
(Selected Samples)
Yummly
I write food stories for Yummly.com several times a month, dozens of pieces over the years on everything from meal planning to hot dogs to the health benefits of fiber. Original recipes, too.
Special Report: The Future of Food
WebMD
(I wrote the entire package: 10 articles, 13,000 words)
Sixty years ago, The Jetsons imagined that in the future, we’d be eating meals in pill form. That hasn’t come to pass – yet. So what (and how) do experts think we’ll be eating 30, 40, 50 years from now?Â
Small Plates “What to Cook This Week”
Epicurious
My weekly column for the site’s “Small Plates” vertical, aimed at busy parents. It features five weeknight dinner menus of kid-friendly dishes, including recipes, time-saving tips, and creative ways to repurpose leftovers.
Impossible? New Veggie Burgers Make a Run at Beef
WebMD
Imagine you’re about to bite into a decadent-looking burger. You inhale the aroma of grilled meat, note the enticing char, anticipate that first juicy mouthful. Take a bite and savor the umami richness. The heat and the smoky flavor are there. It’s perfectly dense and sublime.
Now imagine learning you’ve just eaten a veggie burger.
6 Gross (but Common!) Conditions Parents Don’t Talk About
Parents magazine
Though most parents know that catching something like molluscum, ringworm, or scabies has nothing to do with the cleanliness of their house or their kids, they still feel embarrassed. And unfortunately, that self-consciousness can be a powerful silencer that gives germs time to infect others.
Grace Farris Wants to Talk About Her Air Fryer
Romper
As a doctor and the mom of two young boys, Grace Farris was busy enough. But she’d always drawn for fun, and eventually her illustrator’s eye turned to sketching vignettes of daily life with two children under 5. In 2017, she began to share her comics with friends as @coupdegracefarris on Instagram. You can probably guess what happened next:Â
14 Food Myths You Shouldn’t Believe
Cooking Light
Some of these have a kernel of truth, and others are completely made up. We take a look, and bring the science.
This Former White House Chef Wants You to Stop Stressing About Eating Right
Cooking Light
Sam Kass aims to change our health — and with small, conscious choices, maybe save the world
My Picky Eater Is Teaching Himself to Cook
Epicurious
My son wrote his first recipe two years ago, when he was eight years old. Scrawled in pencil with haphazard spelling, Harry’s “Musterd Dogs” calls for precise amounts of Gulden’s and water, plus hot dogs chopped into one-centimeter pieces. Equally detailed instructions follow—he spells out four separate steps, with cooking timed to the half-minute. The chef ends his recipe with a copyright claim: “P.S If you use this recape [sic] you owe Harry $100,000.”
Learn to Love Ugly Fruits and Vegetables
Eating Well
Imagine if having freckles or curly hair meant you were banished from society. That’s basically what’s happening in the produce aisle. One unsightly blemish or extra curve, and otherwise top-notch fruits and vegetables don’t make it onto dinner plates.Â
Pennsylvania Mill Works to Develop Flour with a Taste of History
Washington Post
It has taken Dave Poorbaugh almost 10 years to get back to the 1740s. Maybe that’s because instead of a DeLorean, his time machine is the historic Annville Flouring Mill in Lebanon County, Pa., which he says is the oldest continually operating flour mill in the country. President of the company that owns the mill, Poorbaugh is a genial history buff who relishes telling tales of his own Colonial lineage. And with this summer’s harvest of 35 acres of heritage wheat, it looks as if he’ll finally taste the bread of his fore¬fathers.
I’m a Food Writer and a Mom and I’m Here to Tell You: Food Writers Lie
Washington Post
This essay was selected for the Best Food Writing Anthology.
Food writers are lying to you. In our quest to inspire people to cook, we offer images of glorious plates of food, dramatically lit, propped with carefully-chosen cloth napkins and color-coordinated dishes, with the most adorable little trail of crumbs to suggest that someone’s actually eating this slice of perfection. My dinner plate never looks like that anywhere but the computer screen, on a really good day. In real life it’s chipped, with maybe some sauce spilling over an edge onto the crumpled paper napkin.
You Cooked What? I’ll Trade You Granola!
New York Times
The kombucha guy was doing it wrong, and so was I. By the time Rich Awn, the owner of the one-man tea-and-coffee brewery Mombucha, arrived at the food swap in a TriBeCa apartment building, the table brimmed with inventive homemade goods, including vodka infused with the needles from an organic Christmas tree. Next to each offering was a green placard where swappers could “bid” — I had already scribbled my name and my offer (chocolate-chip cookies, Samoa bars and granola) on cards for Meyer lemon curd and a few other enticing treats.
The Food Writer and Her Picky Eater
New York Times
Some children are omnivorous, equally enthusiastic for broccoli and brownies. Mine, on the other hand, is non-nivorous. For almost five years now, since he turned 2, Harry’s will-eat list has allowed fruit, snacky things, plain pasta with olive oil, yogurt and mozzarella (shredded only, thank you very much), and sometimes chicken. Oh, and hot dogs. His favorite “vegetables”: olives and capers.