introducing grazing, a newsletter about food and all things tangentially related

You are probably asking, what is this newsletter? I did not sign up for this!

And that’s right; you didn’t. But hear me out. After being dormant for nearly six months (and mostly dormant for the good part of a year), I’m rebooting this space as something totally different: a food newsletter.

Since I last wrote here in earnest, my career has taken a couple twists and turns. My podcast, “Crushed” came out last spring, and a couple months ago I took a new job as an editor at The Athletic, where I work on the NBA team. I’m really enjoying my behind-the-scenes role, and over the past year, my interest in being a front-facing sports writer has waned for a variety of reasons I won’t get into here.

But I still love to write, and I think continual writing makes me a better editor. I also think it’s a pretty decent idea — especially over the past two-ish years — to have some hobbies, and during this protracted pandemic, I have become increasingly obsessed with cooking and baking and all things food. And thus, this newsletter was born.

In the depths of lockdown in 2020, I started experimenting with more complicated recipes. I spent an entire day crafting a massive eggplant parmesan. I lit alcohol on fire for glazes, bought a sous vide, did the whole bread-baking thing, ordered something called “gum arabic” online to make cocktail syrups, mastered cinnamon rolls and created my own hot sauce out of peppers from my best friend’s freakishly abundant backyard plant. 

And ever since it’s felt safe to return to restaurants, I’ve been back in earnest, at The Dabney and Maketto and Blue Duck Tavern and St. Anselm and St. Vincent Wine and Gibson’s and The Bird’s Nest and Duck Duck Goat and Akar and the Bar of America and The Brat House… and several more spots I have neither the time nor recall to name here. I wore out my wallet after more than a year of dining in, nearly fainted at the sheer joy of someone handing me a fresh cocktail and a complicated appetizer — and finally, I think, I’ve reached an equilibrium.

But I’m still fascinated by food in a way I’ve never been before. I read food writing at night, buy a cookbook almost every time I visit my neighborhood bookshop. And I’ve been thinking nonstop about food’s place in my life and society at large, the connections it forges and the memories it leaves behind. 

I’m going to use this space to write about things I cook and bake (when it goes well and when it goes poorly), restaurants I love, memories I can’t quite shake. I’m going to treat this as a hobby, not a job, which is a luxury I didn’t have as a freelancer. 

So yeah, it’s a change. But I hope you’ll stick around. You don’t have to enjoy cooking, I don’t think, to enjoy this; as long as you like eating good food, there should be something for you here. The first “real” newsletter will be in your inboxes tomorrow, about a very ugly, extremely delicious cake.

I haven’t felt this excited about writing in a long time.