After years of assisting Mario Batali and then Anthony Bourdain, Woolever has written a memoir that’s tricky to classify and even harder to put down. Eater, March 2025
First she was a movie star, then she taught the West to love Indian cookery. At 85, she looks back on two remarkable careers. The Guardian, May 2019
After a prodigious rise to the peak of the industry, Jessica Largey burned out. Three years later, she’s back with the long-awaited Simone, a restaurant that’s trying to make restaurant culture better, one employee health plan at a time. Eater, November 29, 2018
Saru Jayaraman has spent most of her career advocating for the rights of restaurant industry workers. And now she's getting some powerful new allies. The San Francisco Chronicle, March 20, 2018
The brains behind the Food Lab is more than just an intrepid recipe tester. He's the food world's Benjamin Franklin, and he's just getting started. Epicurious, June 2017
Trained at Chez Panisse and endorsed by Michael Pollan, Samin Nosrat is synonymous with the Bay Area food scene. Now, with the publication of her first cookbook, she’s about to go national. San Francisco, April 2017.
The San Francisco chef wants you to pickle more vegetables, coddle many eggs, and embrace the beauty of barley flour. Taste, April 2017
Hampton Creek CEO Josh Tetrick doesn’t want to dwell on bad press. Instead, he’d prefer to dream of a better tomorrow. San Francisco, December 2016
The woman who invented the boy who seduced the literary world a decade ago is still searching for answers. San Francisco, September 2016
An accidental farmer (who’s also a dentist) exposes diners to the peculiar and the sublime. San Francisco, August 2016
At his new restaurant inside SFMOMA, Corey Lee brilliantly copies the world’s great chefs. May 2016, San Francisco magazine. San Francisco, May 2016
Minh Tsai is on a mission to make you think differently about soy. San Francisco, March 2016
Carolyn Coquillette has ushered a new age of enlightenment into the dark corners of the garage. December 2015, San Francisco Magazine. San Francisco, December 2015
Thirteen years after he opened Manresa, David Kinch brings bon temps to the land of big data. San Francisco, December 2015
Yeah, I’m Sammy Hagar, and I Learned How to Cook Before I Learned How to Rock. The making of a hair-metal gourmand. San Francisco, August 2015
Real estate developer Ben Shaoul has a history of upscale developments, lawsuits, and acrimony. The New York Times, July 2012
Hannah Upp disappeared in late August and was rescued nearly three weeks later off Staten Island. What happened during those weeks remains a mystery, even to her. The New York Times, February 2009
Not as long as factory farming is still a part of the food supply chain, anyway. Eater, September 2020
Like other facets of the mushrooming plant-based foods industry, sales of vegan cheese have skyrocketed in recent years. The Guardian, May 2019
A decade ruled by anti-fat hysteria got the cookie it deserved. Taste, April 2019
Khan uses her new book, Zaitoun: Recipes From the Palestinian Kitchen, as a window into food in a place of conflict. The Guardian, February 2019
Tea is consumed all over the world, but only in the U.S. has it been so equated with femininity that some companies try to profit from the idea that drinking it makes you less of a man. Taste, January 2019
Hamburgers, with secretive beef blends, over-the-top toppings, and outrageous prices, used to be the celebrated calling card for any respectable chef. Then the histrionics of the patty became a punchline. Taste, January 2019
They’re arguing for their place at top restaurants by imbuing classic desserts with new forms, ingredients, and undeniable originality. T, the New York Times Style Magazine, December 2018
From alleged references to his genitals to insults of “fucking retard,” staffers say the hip restaurateur cultivated a psychologically damaging workplace. Eater, August 2018
Tracing botulism's long and miserable history. Taste, March 2018
There's a lot of damn fine bread in L.A. The New York Times, March 2018
For Palestinian cooks in America, food is a way of tracing identity through a messy past. Taste, January 2018
Gone are complicated sauces and bloated menu descriptions. Here are meal kits and unflinchingly cool, back-to-basics recipes. But does this movement towards pared-down eating help us understand the future of cooking? Taste, November 2017
A European megacorp has been gobbling up the Bay Area's artisan cheesemakers one by one. Is this the end of small cheese as we know it? San Francisco, August 2017
People are lining up around the block at 1951, a non-profit training program that's helping immigrants adjust to American life. Saveur, May 2017
Deep down, every chef secretly wants to be a farm. But when they actually act on that desire, reality bites—hard. San Francisco, May 2017
Almost three years after it was announced, China Live is about to open its (massive) doors in Chinatown—really! San Francisco, March 2017
At the Riddler, the future (and funding) is female. San Francisco, December 2016
At Single Thread, Kyle and Katina Connaughton are bringing microseasonality, extreme hospitality, and a better breed of pencil to Healdsburg. San Francisco, November 2016
San Francisco’s chefs are used to living at the mercy of restaurant critic Michael Bauer. But must they also bow to his boyfriend, Michael Murphy? San Francisco, August 2016
Between the skyrocketing cost of doing business and the unprecedented level of competition, Bay Area restaurant owners are sounding the alarms: A storm is coming. San Francisco, March 2016
Revolution Foods was founded by two women with the mission of making school meals better. Students and investors have eaten it up. So what’s not to love? San Francisco, December 2015
For 10 years, the citizen reviewers Yelp have showered restaurants with praise—and pummeled them with abuse. Is it any wonder that some cooks are suffering from Battered Chef Syndrome? San Francisco, August 2014 Winner of the 2015 James Beard Foundation Journalism Award for Food and Culture
A Mission restaurateur becomes the latest casualty of the gentrification wars. San Francisco, August 2014
Chefs traditionally trained in New York and then stayed. But smaller cities are providing increasingly attractive opportunities, and leaving New York is no longer an admission of defeat. The New York Times, July 2014
In 2001, Colin Devlin helped birth the modern Williamsburg dining scene. In 2013, he was found dead of a self-inflicted gunshot wound in a Pennsylvania cemetery. New York, August 2013
Driving the from New York to San Francisco on what remains of the first transcontinental highway. The New York Times, July 2013
An industrial designer applies his “neo-Gilded Age steampunk” aesthetic to a former Jewish social club. The New York Times, December 2010
Or what I learned when I made my fiance cook with me from ‘A Couple Cooks’. Eater, September 2024
Before the picklers, before the craft chocolate makers, there was Diane Keaton making applesauce in Vermont. Eater, September 2022
Along with an infamous salad dressing recipe, Ephron’s thinly veiled novel gave us the blueprint for the modern food memoir. Eater, March 2023
For many Jews, gefilte fish is the bête noire of the Passover Seder table. It doesn’t have to be that way. Eater, April 2025
I’d been led to believe that a restaurant date was an inherently romantic construct. Mike — and Kenny Rogers — taught me otherwise. Eater, February 2025
A needless innovation considering the ease and low cost of making your own overnight oats, these products are mostly just a waste of plastic. Eater, February 2021
The bulk foods aisle is self-governed and a little feral. Heated, June 2019
No one could tell me what to do. But if visions of the future could yield answers, then who was I to argue? So I called Frank. The Guardian, April 2019
Though it's long been considered as hippie as macramé tapestry—and often maligned—there's a growing sense that nutritional yeast is, basically, the best. Taste, March 2018
The Atomic Age Jewish cookbook Love and Knishes was written in a voice so skeptical, so long-suffering, so unapologetically, unfashionably Ashkenazi Jewish that you could only imagine its author, Sara Kasdan, as an old woman living on the fifth floor of a Lower East Side tenement. But that was far from Sara Kasdan's story. Taste, September 2017 2018 James Beard Foundation Journalism Awards Nominee
One woman's love letter to the rejuvenating powers of Big Sur, which has always been a world apart—and now is literally so. San Francisco, June 2017
I was traumatized by potato pancakes when I was a kid, but making 1,500 of them got me over it. Gilt Taste, December 2011
He sold me salmon, and became my friend. Medium, October 2013 Finalist for the 2014 IACP Bert Greene Award for Culinary Memoir
When desire and necessity drive you to an unlikely place. Medium, August 2013
How can such a good cook be such an awful person? Gilt Taste, July 2012
A romance, told in meals. Gilt Taste, May 2012 Winner of the 2013 IACP Bert Greene Award for Culinary Memoir
For a food writer who doesn’t eat meat, work is sometimes a feast too far. Gilt Taste, January 2012
As a lifelong hot chocolate person, I’ve learned that the best hot chocolate is usually the hot chocolate you make yourself. Eater, February 2025
Assessing President Obama’s food legacy as the election approaches. The New Yorker, September 2016
The red-headed stepchild of the Passover table has been unjustly maligned. It’s time to restore the dish’s honor. The New Yorker, September 2016
Clean food bears the promise of edible salvation. But the rhetoric surrounding it can be hard to swallow. San Francisco, January 2015
Is the city a Jewish-food desert? One Jew weighs the evidence. San Francisco, April 2014
The Basque Book: A Love Letter in Recipes from the Kitchen of Txikito
Co-author, with Alexandra Raij and Eder Montero
Ten Speed Press, 2016
Big Gay Ice Cream: Saucy Stories and Frozen Treats
Co-writer, with Bryan Petroff and Douglas Quint.
Clarkson Potter, 2015
