I remember taking Camas Davis’ sausage making class at Robert Reynold’s kitchen studio. Such a creative time in Portland, when you took a class in person instead of watching a video online. And thank you for including Nong’s on the original Best Restaurant lists. Still one of my favorites!
I forgot that in 2009 being really into food was a bit weird. I was at Saveur magazine around this time and now remember friends being amused about how I spent my days thinking, writing, and talking about food. Fast forward 15 years and kids now cook, bake, and want to be chefs when they grow up.
I think it has to do a lot with Instagram (released 2010) and Tik Tok (released 2016) We are now saturated with social media pages, photos and videos related to food, cooking, and restaurants. The current generation is growing up with this as a norm.
“When being into food and restaurants was cool with a certain smaller crowd, but still made you seem hedonistic and weird to most of your friends and family.”
This is the perfect way of putting it. I was an intern at Portland Monthly in 2011 and sat near Ben Teppler. By proxy got super into food. I used all my nanny-ing money (certainly wasn’t unpaid internship $$ haha) to force my friends and family to go to restaurants we’d talk about in pitch meetings. Everyone thought it was weird, but now I can be like “Remember Aviary’s crispy pig ear?” and a certain group of people just get it.
That was a great era of Portland Monthly food coverage--Ben, Karen Brooks, and others. In 2007 I was offered a full ride to my graduate school of choice the same week I was invited to be the food columnist for Willamette Week. I chose the latter thinking graduate school could wait for a year, and everyone thought I had lost my mind.
I remember taking Camas Davis’ sausage making class at Robert Reynold’s kitchen studio. Such a creative time in Portland, when you took a class in person instead of watching a video online. And thank you for including Nong’s on the original Best Restaurant lists. Still one of my favorites!
I remember that class! Robert was an absolute Portland treasure. He actually turned me into Nongs.
I forgot that in 2009 being really into food was a bit weird. I was at Saveur magazine around this time and now remember friends being amused about how I spent my days thinking, writing, and talking about food. Fast forward 15 years and kids now cook, bake, and want to be chefs when they grow up.
Very true.
I think it has to do a lot with Instagram (released 2010) and Tik Tok (released 2016) We are now saturated with social media pages, photos and videos related to food, cooking, and restaurants. The current generation is growing up with this as a norm.
That's very true. I'm curious what the next wave brings and where platforms like this one take us. Seems people are hungry for more narrative.
“When being into food and restaurants was cool with a certain smaller crowd, but still made you seem hedonistic and weird to most of your friends and family.”
This is the perfect way of putting it. I was an intern at Portland Monthly in 2011 and sat near Ben Teppler. By proxy got super into food. I used all my nanny-ing money (certainly wasn’t unpaid internship $$ haha) to force my friends and family to go to restaurants we’d talk about in pitch meetings. Everyone thought it was weird, but now I can be like “Remember Aviary’s crispy pig ear?” and a certain group of people just get it.
That was a great era of Portland Monthly food coverage--Ben, Karen Brooks, and others. In 2007 I was offered a full ride to my graduate school of choice the same week I was invited to be the food columnist for Willamette Week. I chose the latter thinking graduate school could wait for a year, and everyone thought I had lost my mind.
One of my favorite questions to ask people is “What’s your path not taken?” and skipping grad school to be the WW food columnist is a great answer!
It opened up doors I never knew existed…