How did your career as a NYT Cooking food editor begin?
I often think of each step in my career as stamping out a desire path; getting from where I started, in sports journalism, to where I am now, in food media, has made sense to me along the way. But to others they might think, well, who would walk that way? I went to journalism school. I studied broadcasting. I thought I’d become a sideline reporter on ESPN. But then one day I just … changed my mind. Incremental changes in what I wanted to do professionally ran parallel to my incessant need to try new things and get really good at them. I worked in newspapers on the new media frontier – live-tweeting, Periscope, Snapchat, you name it – as I tried to identify a medium of expertise and another passion to pursue that wasn’t sports. With time each revealed itself to me: newsletters for work, and cooking for fun. What luck it was that by the time I’d built up the courage to apply for a job as a food editor at The Times, the Cooking team was looking for someone with a background in newsletters.
Congrats on the launch of your new cookbook, Veg Everything! Do you have a favorite veg recipe from the book?
This question is a trap! I cannot pick a favorite child – though I suppose I have only one true child in this collection, my Vegan Salted Maple Ginger Pie. But if I’m the fun aunt to the other 100 recipes in the book, developed by more than two dozen of our incredibly talented contributors, well, maybe I can choose. Fun aunts totally have favorites! Maybe it’s the ephemeral nature of summer, but I can’t get enough of Hana Asbrink’s Cold Tofu Salad With Tomatoes and Peaches while the getting’s this good. For that same reason, I’ve also been eating a LOT of Zainab Shah’s Borani Banjan, a bright, Afghan-style dish of eggplant, tomato and yogurt.
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What’s your favorite part about the New York culinary community?
It is always funny to be at a restaurant or on the street and run into someone I “know” but have never formally met. But boy do I know what you ate for dinner last night, and I will say something about it! And you know what? Everyone is so nice. And so thoughtful. And so generous with their time, their knowledge, even their own work. I’ve made some of my best friends through this community, and that has granted me a life more delicious than I could’ve ever imagined, surrounded by shockingly talented people with impeccable taste.
We love the vegetarian cooking newsletter and video series that you host, "The Veggie"! How do you get inspired every week to research and share new recipes for that vertical?
Food defines so much of my social life, and sometimes inspiration is laid plainly before me: a cozy dinner party, a holiday weekend branded with grill marks. But I much prefer when my entry point feels like taking the scuffed-up side door through someone’s garage into their home. It’s so much more creatively gratifying when a rom-com gets me thinking about pickles, or a sweltering summer commute triggers a craving for a no-cook dinners.
My friends know good and well that I also mine our text threads and hangs for material. If you ask me the difference between two kinds of lentils, I will be writing about it, because chances are many of my readers or viewers have the same question but don’t have my phone number. I’d rather my friends, and by extension, the Veggie audience, come to me than to ChatGPT.
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As the Veg Everything cookbook has recipes for everything from weeknight cooking to celebrations, can you share your favorite way to make vegetables feel special?
Whatever the preparation, be it raw, roasted, grilled or otherwise, I want my vegetables to be adorned with something crunchy or fresh. A topping of nuts or bread crumbs or seeds or fried shallots or even some sort of gremolata takes things into a more celebratory territory and makes dinner look like a dish you’d get in a restaurant. It’s practically edible glitter! What’s more special than that?
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