Is This Piece Edible? A Curated Round-Up of Food Writing

Words to savor with a food writing round-up!

Instead of always coming up with ideas on what to write, I considered sharing ideas from other creative food writers. I decided to share some inspiring articles from remarkable food writers and journalists.

Like a monthly food article round-up to showcase my favorite flavors of the month. I can stick with articles and essays. Or also share some inspiring food photography/photographers. Maybe even some cool Instagram channels and add some kitchenware ideas like plates, cutlery, glasses, napkins, and such — after all, I use things like that daily since it’s my job, as a food stylist.

For this week’s newsletter round-up, I’ll stick with articles. Some might be old and some timely but that’s not the point, it’s about a good story, an interesting perspective, or an introduction worthy of applause. Maybe I’ll make this a more regular thing, what do you think? Please vote for what you would prefer below!

1. The first article I enjoyed was by Helen Rosner, a staff writer at The New Yorker who writes a weekly restaurant-review column, The Food Scene which won a 2024 James Beard Award.

   Her article ‘One Weird Night at Frog Club’, starts with “Even if I wanted to go back to Frog Club, I might not be allowed to.” An introduction that nearly forced me to finish her story. Give it a read because there is a bonus of a dramatic chef marriage involved. It’s got it all!

2. Next up is from my new favorite independent publisher, The Bitter Southerner. A formidable essay and photography project called, ‘Waffle House Vistas’ by Micah Cash. It captures the surrounding view from booths at several Waffle Houses and talks about the tale of poverty, politics, consistency, comfort, injustices, and well—waffles.

3. The other piece from The Bitter Southerner I enjoyed is, ‘My Favorite Restaurant Served Gas’ by Kiese Laymon. A ride-along story of a romantic family routine in a Mississippi restaurant called Jr. Food Mart which also serves gas. And check out The Bitter Southerner’s ‘Photo Essays’

4. Roads & Kingdom’s ‘The Battle for The Boqueria’ was written by its co-founder, Matt Goulding. His piece expresses the mass tourism problem from the perspective of Barcelona’s most prized market, La Boqueria. Written in 2018, this proves the issue isn’t resolved but has ballooned across Europe.

5. Another great James Beard Award Winning article, written by Mike Jordan, “Atlanta’s a divided city. Could unity be found on Sunday at 11 a.m.?”

   In his introduction, “A wise man from Atlanta once said that 11 o’clock on Sunday is one of the most segregated hours in America. Of course, Martin Luther King Jr. had things of greater import than brunch on his mind when he made that observation in April 1960 during an interview on Meet the Press. He was talking about integration, specifically related to the Christian church—but there’s more than a one-to-one correlation between church and brunch.”

6. I stumbled upon a Note on Substack from someone sharing Mahira Rivers - Anatomy of a Critic. She talks about the dying art of food criticism, influencers on food, and whether food tasting good or bad even matters anymore. For Mahira as a food critic, it obviously does but for influencers, not necessarily. Great writing!

7. Another food critic, Liz Cook, and her Substack Haterade where she also talks about the tough times in her piece — Turns Out, Nobody Needs A Restaurant Critic. I couldn’t agree more with her on how we still need (responsible) food criticism.

   In this piece, she explained how she saw the role of criticism:

“I do believe that criticism, when practiced responsibly (and that’s a big caveat), is a form of love. Because you have to love something to meet it with honest curiosity—to take at face value what it wants to be or do and evaluate how close it’s getting. You have to love something or someone to spend hours studying it and engaging with it and giving it chance after chance to disappoint you. […]

True criticism always has to start from a place of sincere engagement and love. And that doesn’t mean it has to be gentle. Because when you love something—when you believe in a mission and the people tasked with achieving it—you feel the gulf between what’s promised and what’s delivered as an existential threat. When you care about something, the stakes are too high to sit back and watch it fail–or worse, to watch it cause harm.”

On that beautiful and urgent note I would love to hear back from your vote on the poll above. Thank you for reading, and let’s all give a nice good bye to August!

Oh, and lastly, I’m considering giving The Greasy Pen a massive facelift, logo-wise. Here is my inspiration that I would like to flip as my ‘mascot’, it’s just missing a pen and it could be transformed into a grease stain. What do you think?

My new logo inspiration.

Cuban mojo-ly yours,

The Greasy Pen.