I’ve been a food writer on and off for more than 15 years, a journalist for 30+ years, and a hobbyist cook and inveterate recipe clipper for much longer than that. But I’m a lot like you – no fancy training, no one doing all that slicing and dicing (not to mention dishwashing) for me. I eat and cook in a real food world that is at once more accessible, more cluttered, more confusing and more treacherous.
I worry about whether the next mouthful of salad I eat will make me sick. Or whether the chickens that produced my eggs were treated well. Or whether the salmon I buy has added food coloring. Or whether those heirloom tomatoes are really worth the price. Or whether anyone will notice that I’ve just indulged in a huge hunk of bread. I think you worry about these things too, and I know the avalanche of sources to help you sort them out can be confounding and even contradictory. My goal here is to help you navigate the food around you. Help you figure out what’s fresh, what’s new, where to get things and what the heck to do with them once you have them.
My food and news stories have appeared in The New York Times, Saveur, the Hartford Courant, the Denver Post, the Colorado Springs Gazette and elsewhere. I am a member of the Association of Food Journalists. I am also a TV and radio news veteran of CBS News and CNN.
I welcome your thoughts, suggestions, ideas, needs and questions. Email me.
Jan Ellen Spiegel Connecticut