Deez Interviews: Meet the food writer who’s plugged into all the articles, recipes & hotspots that you’ll want to bookmark ASAP
Happy Friday, Deezers!
This week’s interview is with Abigail Koffler, who talked to us about the tidal change in food media, wrote a 140-character review of her fave restaurant, and dropped some seriously delicious links to save for your weekend reading. Enjoy!
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The interviewee: Abigail Koffler (follow her @abigailcoughler!)
The gig: Food writer
You only recently made the jump into freelancing — what has been the most surprising thing about the transition?
I went freelance in mid April after working in nonprofits for a few years, and the most surprising thing has been realizing that it’s all at your fingertips. If anyone reading this is wondering if they can write for a certain outlet, my advice is to email them! I’ve been writing about food in one way or another for a long time, and always had this nagging feeling that I wanted to do it more.
Since going freelance, I’ve been trying to write about people and places that reflect my values: showcasing women and people of color, talking to local business owners, and sharing recipes for affordable home cooking. That freedom is really valuable, even when other parts are really challenging.
In your experience, what makes good food writing stand out from a souped-up Yelp review?
You can’t eat what the writer ate, but the best writers will make the story compelling anyway. I’m a vegetarian and I live in New York, but I read stories about a barbecue restaurant in South Carolina, a man in his 70s learning to cook for the first time, and even cinnamon rolls (it’s not about the cinnamon rolls) and feel transported.
At its best, food is a way into almost any topic and on a practical level, there’s a huge need for writing that helps people figure out what to make for dinner. There’s definitely a lot of name dropping and references in food writing and remembering what a bubble we’re all in helps to break out of that a bit.
I grew up in Queens, eating lots of different stuff and have lived abroad (in Mexico, Argentina, and Guatemala), so I have lots of things influencing my POV. But so does everyone. Good writing can talk to anyone and make something relevant so I try to remember how varied it can be and not get stuck in a formula.
The recent death of Anthony Bourdain, patron saint to many modern food writers, seemed to really shake us all, even the non-foodies. Why do you think his form of storytelling with food resonated so deeply with just about everyone?
The death of Anthony Bourdain shook everyone, which speaks to his ability to cut through the bullshit. That being said, I don’t feel right about having a hot take on him. I listened to this episode of Carbface recently, a podcast co-hosted by Laurie Woolever, his assistant and collaborator (she’s writing his biography), and they talk about how everyone had a Bourdain story, a selfie, etc, but so few people really knew him.
I was a fan, of course, but have no greater insight. I lived in Latin America for about two years total and always appreciated Bourdain’s approach to the global south. Bourdain’s death was really hard on a lot of people and when I think about the industry going forward, I think about the necessity of Kat Kinsman’s work in Chefs with Issues, which offers resources and safe spaces to people in the restaurant industry.
You pen a regular newsletter called This Needs Hot Sauce. Tell us about your vision for it!
This Needs Hot Sauce is a weekly newsletter about cooking, dining out, and making the most of it. I started it last October, mostly as a distraction from my job and a channel for all these food thoughts swirling around my head.
I always write long emails full of recommendations and this was my way of scaling that. Food to me is so tangible and one of the most rewarding parts of the newsletter is getting texts with pictures of people’s lunches (this miso tahini dressing and this peanut sauce are super popular), or helping someone find the perfect date location [editor’s note: Can personally vouch for Abigail’s killer recs on the cutest pasta places in lower Manhattan, 11/10].
This spring, I started doing events in New York – so far, I’ve had supper clubs, dinner parties, and happy hours. The next one is July 26th if you’d like to come, subscribe to get the details!
I want to keep growing this community and I also love having This Needs Hot Sauce as a weekly place to share what’s happening and hone my voice. It helps me go through my daily life with a bit more curiosity and pushes me to try new things so I can write about them.
The closing of Lucky Peach magazine left a bit of a void in the food media world — who is stepping up to fill that highbrow-but-still-fun perspective on foodie culture today, in your opinion?
I’ll be honest that I was not a religious Lucky Peach reader, it always felt like a cool kids club.But, here’s the thing that’s happened since Lucky Peach closed — all sites have gotten a little bit more Lucky Peach (Helen Rosner wrote a great piece about this).
Bon Appetit’s redesign owes a lot to them and even Peter Meehan, the cofounder of Lucky Peach, writes there occasionally. I will forever miss Gourmet but the layouts and photography in BA are really great now.
I see lots of fun food writing at GQ as well, their food editor Marian Bull is an ex Lucky Peacher and there are lots of new smaller zines coming out. The weird cartoon interludes on Season 1 of Ugly Delicious were an homage to Lucky Peach.
Heritage Radio Network has some excellent shows that I often listen to find new voices — Korsha Wilson and Kerry Diamond host two of my favorites. People hop around a lot in media but I’ll always click on pieces or look at cookbooks by Julia Turshen, Deb Perelman and Mayukh Sen.
The other thing that’s happened since Lucky Peach closed is the #MeToo Movement. Food media has gotten more political and investigative, as it absolutely needs to — the stories that had people talking the most in the past year have been Pulitzer prize winning stories, or ones that take down big names. Eater, led by Amanda Kludt, has also done a ton of investigative work — and they also did a super cool package on how foods go viral on Instagram.
Finally, if you only had 140 characters to review your favorite restaurant — what would that tweet-review be?
Win Son is where you want to eat, six days of the week (it’s closed mondays). Get the pea shoots and add lots of hot sauce. #winning
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Enjoy that weekend, Deezers.
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