David Tamarkin

Bon Appetit published my essay about Thanksgiving bitterness. And online they paired it with an illustration that is probably a pretty accurate rendering of what I’ll look like in 2038. (Detail of an illustration by Jan Buchczik.)

I put down a lot of facts, thoughts, and feelings about Big Chicks for Bon Appetit’s Best Neighborhood Restaurants package. (Incredible photograph by Wes Frazer.)

The 100 Greatest Home Cooks of All Time, a package we poured a lot of sweat into over at Epicurious. (GIF of Jessica B. Harris by Cartuna.)

The book I wrote with the team at Epicurious is available now from Little, Brown. COOK90: The 30-Day Plan for Faster, Healthier, Happier Meals is based on the program I created for Epicurious in 2016. The premise is simple: cooking is a healthy behavior—so let’s do a lot of it in the new year! The book has 140 photos by Chelsea Kyle and over 100 recipes by people such as Rhoda Boone (who also styled the photos), Anna Stockwell, Mindy Fox, and, obviously, me. I’m proud of this book. I hope you’ll check it out.

In the September 2014 issue of Details: The story of the churro-ice-cream-sandwich. This tale has a happy ending (unless you live outside the L.A. area).

I wrote a guide to healthy eating in Chicago for Cooking Light. Somehow, it included biscuits and gelato.

Epicurious called and said I could write about whatever I want. These are a few of the stories I came up with: A plea for pastis. A conversation with Jeni of Jeni's Ice Cream. An appreciation of Craig Berman's inventive coffeemaker. And a profile of Bad Wolf Coffee's Jonathan Ory (pictured above; thanks to Martha Williams for the photograph).

I wrote a guide to Logan Square, a neighborhood in Chicago, for Bon Appetit. The month that this article was published, my editor did an event in Chicago and was confronted by a few locals. One young, good-looking guy said "nice piece on Logan Square—but it's five years too late." Then an elderly woman stood up and said "what's Logan Square?"

Here's a random blog post from 2012. I wrote it when Charlie Trotter closed his restaurant, and Time Out Chicago unearthed it when Trotter passed away. I've written a lot about Charlie, but this post, which I remember firing off under a tight deadline, packs in everything I have to say about the guy.

In the summer of 2013 Bon Appetit asked me to write a few stories about America's new obsession with vegetables. (My editors there apparently do not know that I only eat cake.) The stories were collected in a gorgeous package under the headline The Vegetable Revolution. 

In the summer of 2011 I spent a (very hot) afternoon in Paul Kahan's backyard. Then I wrote a story about it for Bon Appetit.

A Q&A with food activist Mark Kastel, co-founder of The Cornucopia Institute. This appeared on Gourmet.com as a companion to my article about Kastel in the November 2008 issue.

Every year my friend Jessica and her sister throw a dumpling-making party for the Chinese New Year. In 2007, I turned that idea into an entertaining story for Every Day With Rachael Ray. The story looked fantastic in print (despite everything going wrong at the photo shoot); the online version is pretty much just the recipes I developed.

A profile of Jerrod and R.J. Melman, the sons of Lettuce Entertain You's Richard Melman. Published in Time Out Chicago on September 3, 2010. In the middle of the article they call me a "pussy" for not drinking martinis. I have since started.

When I was the food editor at Time Out Chicago, I created a recurring feature called The Artisan, a series focused on Chicagoans who are producing great products on a small scale. This profile was one of the first we ran. The name of the artisan is Jessica Volpe, but she goes by Pasta Puttana, a.k.a. "pasta whore."

My article about Mexican food in Chicago. Published in Gourmet in September 2007.

I traveled to San Juan in 2009. Despite my efforts, I didn't quite fit in. But I did have my first real mojito, which I write about in this Gourmet.com blog post, posted March 10, 2009.