Articles
Profiles + Reporting
Don Wyse Is Growing a New Future for Farming | NY Times, 2022
The Cook and the Heart of the Restaurant Industry [PDF] | SF Chronicle, 2019 | Beard Award finalist
When Did Vegan Food Get Beautiful? | Wall Street Journal (paywall), 2021
Restoring Indigenous Sea Gardens | EatingWell, 2021
Six Feed, an email newsletter about COVID hunger | Substack, 2020
Silicon Valley’s New Robot Vending Machines | LA Times, 2020
Can Restaurant Dishes Be Copyrighted? | Eater, 2020
Fernay McPherson Left the Fillmore and Found Her Future [PDF] | SF Chronicle, 2018
The Fight for Labor Rights at SF’s Most Famous Taqueria [PDF] | SF Chronicle, 2018
David Lee Hoffman, Tea Guru in the Fight of a Lifetime [PDF] | SF Chronicle, 2018 | AFJ Award
Saras Rao Says Goodbye [PDF] | SF Chronicle, 2017 | CA Newspaper Assoc. Award
Pro-Choys: The Farmers Supplying Chinatown Markets [PDF] | Lucky Peach, 2013
Feature Packages + Essays
EatingWell’s Food Heroes: 10 Portraits | EatingWell, 2021
Guide to Regional Chinese Cuisines in the Bay Area | SF Chronicle | James Beard Award winner
A Place Is a Gift | Substack newsletter
Overwintering Turns Brassicas Sweet. Could It Do the Same For Me? | Bon Appetit, 2022
The Year in Photographing Flowers | Hazlitt, 2020
Food + History
‘Get Fat, Don’t Die’: Cooking and AIDS | Hazlitt, 2020 | 2021 Best American Food Writing
Why ‘Got Milk’ Is One of the Greatest Ad Campaigns of All Time | Saveur, 2022
The Decade of the Chile Pepper | Saveur, 2022
The Lifesaving Magic of Gay Smut [NSFW] | Vice, 2021
Why Tofu Became a Punchline | Food & Wine, 2021
The Legacy of ‘Diet for a Small Planet‘ | Bon Appetit, 2021
How Carob Traumatized a Generation | New Yorker, 2018
Six Dishes That Tell SF Chinatown’s Story | Resy, 2021
How Teriyaki Became Seattle’s Own Fast-Food Phenomenon | Seattle Weekly, 2008
Additional Expertise
Editing
In 2019, I led the charge to help the SF Chronicle revamp its lifestyle coverage in order to better tell stories about the life and culture of the Bay Area in the digital-first era. I have also run two newspaper food blogs and several email newsletters, and conceived and edited award-winning theme issues involving interactive websites and dozens of contributors. I have also copyedited many books — cookbooks, for sure, as well as full-length books on such esoteric subjects as California flyways and Sufi mysticism.
Public Speaking
Since the publication of Hippie Food, I have given talks about the 1970s natural-food movement to audiences across the country (here’s one!). I also gave more than 50 radio and podcast interviews to programs such as NPR’s Here and Now, KQED’s Forum, KCRW’s Good Food, and the Splendid Table. I have appeared on television in Seattle, the Bay Area, and Spain (translated into Catalan, no less). That doesn’t include slew of panels I have spoken on or moderated — covering topics as varied as the disappearance of the mid-tier restaurant and the state of Chinese food in the Bay Area — as well as the chefs and writers I have interviewed on stage, including Jonathan Gold, Stuart Brioza and Nicole Krasinski, and Charles Phan.
Header photo credit: Rosa Furneaux / SF Chronicle