We’re doing things out of order this week on Grazing, because yesterday, for the first time in more than two years, my writing was published somewhere other than in this newsletter.
Today’s post will be the main, free post for the week, and the paywalled post will show up in your inboxes on Thursday. Okay? Great. Now that housekeeping is out of the way, can I tell you a bit about what I wrote?
In 2021, after finishing a narrative podcast about baseball that took about a year and a half to report, write and produce, I took a job as an editor. After a decade writing — for Fox Sports, the Denver Post and Sports Illustrated — I’d decided I wanted to fade behind the scenes. So I informed the various places where I’d been freelancing for almost two years that I was finished, and I vanished.
A lot has changed since then. Back in 2021, I knew I didn’t want to write about sports full-time anymore, and the podcast had exhausted me. Editing was a natural next step — but I had no idea how much I’d miss writing. Writing keeps my brain humming. It’s the best kind of therapy for me, and it’s somehow both the most stressful act I ever commit and also the greatest form of stress relief. Quickly, I realized I had to keep doing it — which is what led me to turn this newsletter from a collection of sports columns into … whatever it is now. Since then, I’ve kept on editing during the daytime, and in all my other waking hours, I’ve fallen in love with food writing. I’ve made this newsletter a twice-weekly event, and I’m plowing my way through a two-foot-tall pile of books about food.
Here’s something else I missed — something it took me longer to realize I needed: the process of putting out a story. I missed deadlines and talking with editors and responding to notes. I missed the agony of making a sentence work, the abject fear that washes over me before I click on a published link. I missed the dopamine hit of a byline beamed out to tens of thousands of readers, the thrill of hearing from Internet People who love (or sometimes hate) what I have to say.
Yesterday, my first Washington Post byline published. It was also my first byline since September 2021 and the first piece of food writing I’ve ever published anywhere but here. It was a story about cake.
Why I made my own wedding cake — despite everyone’s best advice
The night before my wedding, a well-meaning friend asked me what time I was “getting started” in the morning. Without missing a beat, I explained that it doesn’t take long to make a batch of buttercream, and the cake layers wouldn’t need to come out of the freezer until noon to defrost, so I wouldn’t really have to do much until late morning.
I paused when my friend’s brow furrowed. She’d been asking, I realized a beat too late, about hair and makeup. Embarrassed, I told her I was handling all of that myself. In fact, I hadn’t thought much about it. Instead, my brain was filled with visions of wedding cakes: clean layers and silky-smooth ganache, crumbled streusel and glossy buttercream.
If you’d like to continue reading, the rest of the story is here, on The Post’s website. There’s also a really nice illustration, my mom’s first photo credit and, well, a bunch more writing that reads a lot like what you find in Grazing. Not to play spoiler, but the gist of the story is this: My decision to make my own wedding cake stemmed from a lot more than just the (exorbitant) price tag associated with buying one, and as I made test cakes and grocery shopped and finally executed my plan, I did a lot of reflecting about myself, my feelings about weddings and why I love to bake.
Within minutes of the story posting Monday morning, I heard from multiple women — on Slack, Twitter, Bluesky, Instagram and over text messages — who told me how much they could relate to the emotions I shared. They were women like me, who didn’t take naturally to wedding planning, and more than one of them told me they felt something like relief while reading. A couple even said they were considering making their own cakes.
I could’ve cried. For a year or more, I’ve tried to explain to people why I like writing about food, and those messages said it better than I ever had: I like it — no, I love it — because it reaches people in a way I’m not sure anything I ever wrote about sports did. I love it because by and large, it makes people happy, hopeful, hungry. It starts conversations. Thanks for being a part of this one.
As someone who is planning a wedding right now, I shared in the feeling of relief while reading that you mentioned. I hadn't had the words to describe that wedding planning didn't come naturally to me until I read your piece. My favorite part has been planning the menu & cake flavors. Thank you for sharing!
It was a total joy to read this story! Congrats on the successful baking and writing projects, both of which I find extremely impressive. (Aaand now I'm suddenly feeling the need to bake something this evening!)