The nature of magazine publishing has changed so much since I started out as a junior editor 25 years ago that no two days look the same. The work used to be cyclical on a monthly magazine: plan, assign, write, edit, proofread, ship, rinse and repeat. Now, the magazine is just a small part of what I work on as our director of special projects. Food & Wine is an all-encompassing brand that includes not just stories and recipes across multiple platforms, but live events, award programs, special digital issues, licensing, and more. I might spend a morning in meetings planning topics and talent for cooking demos and wine seminars for our flagship event of the year, the Food & Wine Classic in Aspen, edit a story that I commissioned for the travel section before lunch, and in the afternoon hammer out a proposed content plan and a mood board for how we might execute the story-telling around our annual Global Tastemakers Awards, which celebrates the best in culinary travel. There’s a lot of switching gears and changing hats, while also keeping things running on time, and serving multiple stakeholders at once. The biggest constant in publishing is change, which is what I love about this industry. 

I think there’s a perception that food media is glamorous and that we just go out and eat at all the fancy, new restaurants all the time and write about it. A small portion of it (pun intended) can be that and we certainly are afforded incredible opportunities, but what people may not realize is how unsustainable and unhealthy a life like that really is. (And I know I sound like a spoiled asshole for saying it!) Working in a test kitchen around food every day, or eating out four or five nights of the week, or tasting and writing about wine for a living requires discipline and balance and awareness so you don’t end up drunk, bloated with indigestion, or with high cholesterol or gout! Our mission is to help our readers eat, drink, and travel better and more deliciously without feeling sick while we’re doing it. At any given time, there is a recipe developer sweating over their third test of a cake to make sure a home cook can nail the recipe at home, a restaurant editor who really doesn't want to eat two dinners in one night but will do so to make budget and a deadline, and a wine writer with acid reflux at their third tasting for the week. (And yes, they’re spitting.)

On the content side, I’ve been very lucky to work across a diverse mix of special projects and one of my favorites was a mini print magazine and a digital issue celebrating Canadian foodways and flavors. I collaborated with Top Chef judge Gail Simmonds to curate a special digital issue, At Canada’s Table, that looks at the chefs, restaurants, tastemakers, and innovators shaping Canadian food and drink today. We enlisted a small, talented army of Canadian food writers and journalists to bring it to life, and Gail even lugged a giant bag of Canadian candy to the office “for research”, naturally. However, one of my favorite projects is one that doesn't involve recipes or stories at all. For the past six years, I have helped spearhead our Best New Chef Mentorship Program, which aims to empower the next generation of chefs in the kitchen to lead with grace and integrity and navigate their newfound publicity in a way that benefits their careers and their teams. We address topics pertinent to the industry, from self-care and work-life balance to scaling a business, branding, leadership, and cultivating a positive kitchen culture. Often it’s the quiet, behind-the-scenes work that is the most meaningful of all.

Unsurprisingly, through food and hospitality. Like every Australian expat in NYC, I have a consistent source of Vegemite and Tim Tams that I’m always pushing on my friends and colleagues. (Wegmans sells them both in the “British” aisle). I make a pavlova or a trifle for any dinner I’m hosting or invited to, and in the summer it will be drizzled with canned passionfruit that I’ve brought back in my suitcase from Sydney. I refuse to drink drip coffee when I can find an Aussie wielding a La Marzocco espresso machine to make a flat white at a local cafe. And if I’m feeling really homesick, there’s nothing quite like listening to the steady stream of Aussie voices at Old Mates in the Seaport. It’s the only legit Aussie pub I’ve come across in my 11 years in the U.S. that is run and staffed by Aussies, and frequented by Aussies. In addition to meat pies and sausage rolls, they serve nostalgic pub food like potato wedges with sour cream and sweet chili sauce, a roast on Sundays, beetroot and pineapple on their burgers (trust me, it’s life-changing), and a chicken parmy.