Hello, hello! An update: Things are going well in Rhode Island; my work portfolio (including copywriting and content strategy clips) is here; I am one part fried seafood and one part ice cream. (And I am not sorry.)
This week, I’m posting about the wonders of Warren, Rhode Island. (I’m too busy to pitch and write a “proper” travel story.) If you’re into that sort of thing, feel free to follow me on Instagram.
Recently, I’ve done some copywriting about kids’ clothing and cookware, written a white paper about civic tech, and edited curriculum about decarbonized energy. My portfolio is the best place to see the breadth of what I do and find my contact info.
When I came to New York City, I was 24. I wore a suit to my interview at ICM. It was August, so I arrived at the literary agent’s office soaked in sweat, with my long, Crystal Gayle hair stuck flat to my face. Somehow, miraculously, I got the job.
The late Lindy Hess of the Radcliffe Publishing Course—who rocked her own long, is-Joni-in-the-building sheets of hair—had put my resumé in the wrong box. On purpose. She had called me into her office after seeing I’d put my resumé in the box meant for folks wanting to stay in Boston. (There was a guy.)
She looked at my poorly applied liquid liner, my ripped suede coat, and squinted.
“You belong in New York,” she said, flipping her hair for
emphasis. “You’re fashionable—not that fashionable—but
I think you’d do well there.”
I muttered something about wanting to stay in Somerville and stay small and not make trouble and maybe I could get the One Editorial Assistant Job at Beacon. I put my resumé back in the Boston box.
A few days later, I got a call.
“This is Lisa at ICM. We’d like you to come in for an
interview on Tuesday.”
“Are you guys on the Red Line?” I asked brightly.
Long pause. “We’re on 57th street at 6th Avenue.”
This was not a Boston address. Holy shit. New York goddamn city.
“Ok, see you Tuesday!” I squeaked.
I got the job, and my friend Amber and I—who got to talk to Gary Shteyngart, Francine Prose, Kevin McCarthy, all these badass writers—made $22,000 a year. Cokes in the office fridge were free, so we drank all the Cokes. At a party, hearing us complain of anxiety and stomachaches, a colleague suggested it might be the five Cokes we each drank daily. We snapped at him.
At 5pm, we’d run to the subway to make it to Oznot’s—a bar off Bedford in Williamsburg with pretty little tiles behind the bar—in order to make their happy hour, which ended at 6. We ordered Raspberry Lambics for $2.50 each, and thought ourselves the height of sophistication. I paid $500 per month for a room at Bedford and Grand in Williamsburg. It was so small I couldn’t get out the door once I’d unfolded the futon. I painted the walls baby blue—a fake sky—in order to not lose my mind.
In my time in the city, I saw some things. I attended epic dance parties and marched in the Mermaid Parade as a Busby Berkeley girl. I got the jobs of my dreams—hosting a restaurant segment on NY1; launching websites; learning about food; consulting for awesome companies; writing for The New York Times and The Washington Post—and I am a bit verklempt to leave.
For two and a half years, I’ve been living in Westchester with my daughter, in an apartment overlooking the mighty Hudson River. I raised an infant in a pandemic, largely alone, while freelancing. I found a great daycare, and squeezed in half-hour walks daily along the river, thanking the sky, the trees, the Palisades for helping me survive a tough couple of years.
I left New York City because I could no longer handle the
pointy subway elbows, the smoking neighbors, the car alarms. I am leaving New
York State to be closer to family, and am psyched to be in contract for a house
in Rhode Island.
“L’il Rhody.” I’m trying it on for size. I found a little 1950s baby with good bones and a knobby old tree out front. I’m going to paint it pale blue with a red door and hope it doesn’t look like a flag or Crest toothpaste. It’s got shingles and problems and a big old porch and soon it will be mine. And I’m optimistic—cautiously, as I’m a cynical New Yorker forever—for this new chapter. The fried fish here is killer. My new house has a little room for me to work in, looking out at the sea. There’s easy Amtrak access for trips back to the city. So come visit! Really.
I’m also in the market for full-time remote work and fun, robust contract jobs, so please ping me with leads and neat-sounding opportunities. (Try grub lover AT gee male.) And see you in Rhody.
AVB
Posted on
Time for my annual update! I was thrilled that J. Kenji López-Alt and Silvia Killingsworth included my New York Times piece in the 2020 edition of Best American Food Writing. I’ve always admired their work, and I’m in such good company in this anthology. (Funnily enough, one of my first gigs was working on Da Capo Best Music Writing collections back in 2000 when I was an assistant editor.)
I’ve had a couple more pieces in the Times since that piece ran: an apology to parents and a 101 on the Waldorf school method (which is fascinating). I have excellent editors at the NYT, and they make me look good.
In other news, I’m still consulting, copywriting, and raising my wonderful, headstrong, happy toddler. We have a view of the mighty Hudson River, which has shored us up during a difficult year in the world. Hope you and yours are safe and hanging in there.
If you’re a journalist working in food, odds are good that someone has asked you write a piece about the Instant Pot. Thanks to its efficiency, it’s enormously popular, but I felt compelled to find out whether it could make a few of my favorite dishes tasteas good. So I did a side-by-side taste test and feature for a newspaper I’ve long admired, The Washington Post. The piece is here, a few of my other clips are here, and I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t excited to see it as the cover story for the food section this week.
Thanks for reading, and if you have questions, please come ask them in an online chat on Weds, January 24th, at noon, right here!
I was lucky enough to know all four of my grandparents. Grandpa Van Buren showed up every Christmas as round and rosy-cheeked as Santa Claus, bringing with him a big suitcase full of gifts—sweaters with snowflakes, and sensible things like that—he and Grandma had picked out in Florida. Even into his 80’s, he remembered meeting her, clear as day, when she was a nurse at the hospital where he was a doctor: “Her red hair shone like an angel’s!” He fought in Korea, and they raised eight kids in Flatbush, and then Long Island. Though Grandpa has passed on, grandma is still with us, living in Massachusetts. She is 99. She still looks like an angel.
Granny and Pop-Pop raised my mother first in Queens and then in Long Island, just down the street from the Van Burens. The photo above shows them on their first date, on Central Park South, on May 1, 1936. They were so clearly already smitten, and they went on to marry and raise seven children together. (Our family weddings—teeming with aunts, uncles, cousins, and cousins’ babies, all of whom think they can dance—are no joke.)
My memories of Granny and Pop-Pop are ferociously strong, so I wrote about them—my Granny’s frugality, my Pop-Pop’s pride, and a one-legged, possibly rabid, rather Irish-Catholic turkey—for The Daily Beast this Thanksgiving. I think I edited this piece 33 times on my own before sending it to Noah Rothbaum, who is running one heck of a food and drink page for TDB. I hope you enjoy it, and that you have a wonderful Thanksgiving.
It’s been—ack!—almost a year since I’ve posted here, which attests to the state of the world, my reluctance to write without pay, and my desire to revamp this site powered by WordPress as soon as humanly possible.
I’ve been busy in the best of ways; for a couple of fun months last summer, I served as digital strategist and temporary deputy editor for Panna Cooking. I got my analytics fix and revved up their social media voice, running a little editorial department while their EIC was overseas. It was a blast, as they’re good people doing good work.
These have not been an easy few months, world-wise. I find myself sleeping uneasily.
But although there’s not a ton I can do to change international affairs right this second, I picked up my head from the laptop this Friday afternoon to see that the sun is shining and people are smiling on the streets of Brooklyn. A little boy is eating a folded slice while the cheese slops on to the sidewalk, in the style of this fantastic town.
I’m planning a trip to Paris. I made a few new wonderful friends this last year in New Orleans, Nashville, and Raleigh. Things are generally rad.
Here is the recipe for the bread pictured above. It’s a good one. And here is my recipe for spring: you, rosé, and a bag stuffed with olives, bread, cheese, and a blanket. Find the nearest green space. Pack your shades. Summon friends. Lie down. Shut off your phone. You can do it. Turn the newspaper into a pillow, for an hour. Self-soothing: It matters.
Is it your birthday? Good for you. Listen to “Birthday” by the Sugarcubes. No? “Israelites,” by Desmond Dekker. The whole album. It’ll help, I promise.
Hang in there, you. Hang in there, 2017. You got this.
Chocolate mousse pie at Pels Pie Company in Brooklyn. Credit: Alex Van Buren
This morning my computer had a close encounter with a cup of coffee. I shorted out the keyboard but maybe not the entire contraption; time will tell. It’s shocking that this hasn’t happened prior to today, as I am an accomplished klutz. And it could be worse by a longshot, as I’m overdue for an upgrade. Some days peanuts, some days shells. (Does anyone know the origin of that expression? Is this correct? I’m very curious.)
I love autumn. I haven’t yet made it apple-picking, but will soon head upstate to drink cider and see family before November is out, so I feel lucky. And! Travel is officially part of my job description now, as I’ve been writing extensively for the lovely team at Travel + Leisure about topics as eclectic as lobster, Dia de Los Muertos, etiquette, and Chris Christie. I even, with great trepidation, revealed my best tip for scoring a cheap car rental, and may regret it in the years to come.
I’ll tweet these stories as they surface online, but definitely also follow the site’s Twitter handle. And yep, I’m still writing, editing, and consulting for a variety of other wonderful publications, too, such as Epicurious and Real Simple. I just feel especially fortunate to be able to focus on travel for such a neat site.
Dry-aged beef potstickers at Brooklyn’s East Wind Snack Shop. Go there. Sprinkle that umami secret spice mix on ’em. So good. Photo: Alex Van Buren, Instagram
Happy August! So let’s get something clear up front: No one is allowed to mention anything about [redacted] or shoveling [redacted] to me yet. I haven’t jumped in enough lakes or eaten enough lobster rolls yet. Let’s just wait till [redacted] to discuss [redacted] weather, shall we? Thank you.
Now that we’ve gotten that out of the way, here’s what I’ve been up to: consulting, writing, and editing, with a bit of copywriting, to boot. It’s been a blast, and I’m ramping up for fall. I have two stories up at Epicurious, a site I’ve always loved, about the bizarre egg shortage (and how prices are likely going to spike this fall) and five smart ways to use canola oil, my go-to for making Pok Pok wings at home. I’ve also been doing some work for the fine folks at Liquor.com, Brides, and Vox, among others.
So let’s not get all grim about [redacted] being around the corner. And I hope to see you eating ice cream, wearing a floppy hat, or picking out fat peaches at the market some day soon.
My father’s mother recently realized that her eldest unmarried granddaughter is living in Brooklyn, alone, without the proper accoutrements.
Our calls typically involve my shouting so she can hear me—she is 94—and grandma shouting so she can hear herself. One exchange several months ago went like this:
Her: “Alex! Your father tells me you’ve moved! What are you doing for china?!”
Me: “Sorry, grandma?!”
Her: “CHINA!”
Me: “Grandma, I have plates and bowls. They’re nice. I’m fine. I promise.”
Her: “Hmmmph. What about crystal and silver?!”
Crystal and silver? Me: “Grandma, I’m FINE.”
Now, we are not a fancy family, but Grandma hails from Kings County herself, and had her wedding reception right off the promenade in Brooklyn Heights. And apparently she’d be damned if any granddaughter of hers would be entertaining in her home borough without proper silver. This resulted in my dad lugging an unexpected gift to me from Massachusetts a few years ago: Silverware. Lots of it. A slightly mismatched but very elegant set in a heavy, velvet-lined box.
I busted it out in February, alongside the plates I’d picked up at the Vanves flea market in Paris.
It had been my first big trip to Paris. Ten days. Steak frites obsessiveness. Lots of coffee. Lots of fromage. And I loved it, like you do, but I returned not feeling covetous of the bistros or the restaurants, but wanting to cook more for the people I love. In Brooklyn, as in Paris, we’re able to walk from butcher to cheesemonger, grocer to café, and I was reminded that I can do a lot of great things with easily accessible, excellent products. (Also, I mean, those plates. Yowza.)
Hosting friends for Valentine’s Day, I made Mark Bittman’s pernil, half of which I turned into carnitas, and a shrimp ceviche with blood orange juice. I yammered on about my “tablescape” all night long. (My grandma, in a sense, saw this aspect of my personality emerging before I did.) It was a delightful evening regardless.
In work news, this week marked my last week as an editor at Yahoo Food. I had such fun there and learned so much, and was proud of the work I featured, whether it was a sweet speech by a bartender, an Italian-American grandma’s meatball recipe, a gorgeous series of stonefruitcocktails, or a website doing civic-minded food journalism. I left in order to restart my own digital content strategy, consulting, writing, and editing business. I couldn’t be more excited, I’ll post about cool projects occasionally on this page or on Twitter, and I hope you have a lovely spring.
It wasn’t work that was tough. My colleagues and I launched a new site, Yahoo Food, a work in progress of which, as Features Editor, I’m proud. We’ve been toiling away for a couple of months behind closed doors, and now the floodgates are open to everyone’s critiques. It’s a challenge we’re up for; constructive criticism is a good thing, and you can send it here or even here until we get comments functionality.
But the first story in what we in the biz call the “hero module”—the one with the floury hands shown above—when that one went live, my heart sank a bit. I’ve been working on this piece on and off for several years, and although I hope it’s well-written, and that it moves you to cook for the people you love, it doesn’t do justice to the woman who inspired it.
My first mentor, who I call “Betty” in the essay, could write circles around me. Not only did she get me my first job in magazines, but she was terribly kind about my earliest, most horrible drafts of stories. Her stories had the most gorgeous, ephemeral ledes—all sweetness and light, for an îleflotante—and then she’d hit you with a perfect pun, or a flip turn of phrase that made you giggle. Her kickers left you wishing the article was twice its length.
She wrote circles around me, and she would have written circles around me today, and I wish like hell I hadn’t had to write this piece at all, and that she was still here. Her empathy was extraordinary; no matter how down cancer got her, she always wanted to hear about your day. Betty was just straight-up a better person than I am, and I think of her when I consider how best to treat other people.
I didn’t use her name, and I never would, because her byline was a source of pride. (She wasn’t vain or arrogant, ever, but she was a perfectionist when it came to her work.)
My little essay is just an effort to remind the chilly people in the big cities that casseroles and caretaking can be transporting for those in need, especially this time of year.
Hope you dig the site. My articles are here, but you should be sure to read the articles bymycolleagues, too.
