In 1997 my wife and I left Denver for Atlanta with three little girls under the age of 6, a Subaru station wagon and a Bernese Mountain dog. I wore a full beard with my hair gathered into a long, unruly ponytail. We could not have looked more Coloradan had we arrived on snowboards with cans of Coors in our hands.
Except, my tastes were a little fancier.
I was hired as a dining critic by The Atlanta Journal-Constitution’s former editor, Ron Martin, a remarkable polymath who quoted M.F.K. Fisher during my interview, and Susan Puckett, the paper’s brilliant former food editor.
At first, my job consisted of writing the reviews, a restaurant news column, a “restaurants revisited” column and a monthly cooking story. It was my love of cooking that had gotten me into this line of work, and I didn’t want to lose that connection to the kitchen, even as I dined out.
Man, did I dine. The pace was unrelenting, and my 35-year-old metabolism couldn’t have been more up to the task. Atlanta during those last years of the previous millennium was working so hard to establish itself as a cosmopolitan city, and the restaurant scene was flush with money and ambition. I had no credit to speak of, so every so often I’d take a requisition form down to the employee services window where the lady there would count a pile of $100 bills into my hand.
As fun as it was to invite friends to the foie gras and lobster restaurants, I personally became much more interested in Atlanta’s international communities, and the ways in which new immigrant populations were changing the city’s foodways. Compelling stories lay behind every dish I tried.
By the mid-2000s, I knew I wanted to become a better reporter and learn how to tell stories, and that meant taking a break from reviewing. Luckily for me, the paper hired Meridith Ford, who took over the beat with admirable skill and personality as I wrote a variety of stories.
I bounced around a bit, reporting from the Gwinnett County desk and then the G-8 Summit at Sea Island, writing feature trend stories, and trying my hand with long Sunday profiles of newsmakers. Along the way, I picked up a Sunday food column.
In 2010, the paper asked me to take the reins on the dining reviews again, and, though I balked at first, I’m glad I was able to finish out my career here where it started.
Critical writing is my home base. It keeps my writing voice from getting too dutifully academic or, in a weird way, from becoming too pedantic. You have to back up your opinions with observation and the right tone, otherwise you’re an insufferable know-it-all. Maybe some of you think I am; it comes with the territory.
My editors have asked me to pick out a favorite story or two from each of the 613 years I’ve worked here, starting back in the quattrocento, when I was enamored by all the new spices Marco Polo had brought back here. Oh, wait … 18 years. That’s still a lot. But, if you’re interested, here they are.
1997 — Dining: An evening at Seeger’s will be hard act to follow
When I first arrived, Susan Puckett drove me to Buckhead to show me the two homes being renovated for the season’s two biggest restaurant openings. Hedgerose was a reboot of the former Hedgerose Heights Inn, with a high-profile new culinary team. Seeger’s was the first solo effort from Guenter Seeger, who had earned a James Beard Award for his work at the Dining Room at the Ritz-Carlton Buckhead.
I spent a bucket of money and made a swift call early on the job. Hedgerose wasn't all that, and Seeger's had the potential to become one of the nation's top restaurants. Hedgerose did not last long (though the owners refashioned it into the very successful Aria), while Seeger's went on to earn 5 stars from the Mobil Travel Guide, one of a handful of such restaurants nationwide.
Still, I often defended Seeger’s to readers, who found it stuffy and unsatisfying. They also HATED the restaurant’s early policy of adding a non-negotiable surcharge for bottled water. To this day, the meals I’ve had at Seeger’s rank among the best of my life. I can’t wait for the chef’s return when he opens a restaurant in Lower Manhattan later this year.
1998 — Commentary: 35 years of easy-come, easy-go for Easy-Bake … Dad, the dining critic, extols its virtues to the next generation
Of all the stories I wrote in 1998, none got as much attention as a column I wrote about the Easy-Bake Oven, which my kid wanted for Christmas. It reminded me of the time I wanted an Easy-Bake Oven as a kid and completely freaked my parents out. As I wrote, I might as well have asked for a set of hot rollers and jar of Dippity-do. National media soon came calling, and I gave an interview to NPR as the Easy-Bake dad.
Couscous the Wolfert way … Ingredient and equipment escapades pay off with grain-size pasta that’s memorable
My favorite story of the year was about a day spent with one of my culinary heroes, cookbook author Paula Wolfert, as we traipsed all over Atlanta for the right ingredients and equipment to make hand-rolled couscous. It's still one of my favorite culinary parlor tricks. Everyone is amazed how readily semolina flour can transform into couscous.
1999 — The marquee at Las Vegas’ hot new gambling palace Bellagio flashes “Vincent Van Gogh! Henri Matisse!” Whatever happened to Wayne Newton?
The Bellagio was one of the first mega-hotels to transform the role and ambition of dining on the Las Vegas Strip. Ron Martin saw that it would be a major shift in the city’s reputation, and he sent me there to explore.
I have never, before or since, eaten so many fancy meals by myself. The package of stories earned some awards, so hopefully that justified the expense.
2000 — Five-star getaway: Top-rated by Mobil Travel Guide, Four Seasons Hotel in Midtown was the luxurious backdrop for a weekend free from the demands of children, felines and concerns
Yeah, those were the days. When the Four Seasons was named one of the nation's best hotels in the country by a travel guide, the paper sent me and my wife for a weekend getaway with instructions to put the staff through their paces. I asked the concierge to bring flowers within a very short time limit. "What kind?" she asked. Just saying the first thing that popped into my mind, I answered "calla lilies." I had no idea what a calla lily looked like and had to find a picture when I got home to make sure it was right.
Flaky Prime Meridian is all over the map
I sometimes called on my experiences as a former restaurant cook to inform my reviews, and they came in handy with this pan of Prime Meridian in CNN Center.
2001 — Upper-crust cooking: the art of using a gratin dish … From oven to table, earthenware uses wet and dry heat to yield moist meats, bubbling potatoes
I made sure to always have one good cooking story a month. It was such a pleasure to work with the team back then, which included food stylist and recipe tester Jeanne Besser. She’s a terrific cook and writer, and it was nice to have a second set of hands trying out recipes that often came out of my brain.
This was a story that had been on my mind for a while. Susan Puckett and I talked about it a lot, which helped me think its odd perspective through before writing it. Humblebrag: It earned a James Beard Award.
2002 — World Eats: Pad Thai lesson passes generation to generation
I really wanted to learn more about international cooking, so I began a twice-monthly column called World Eats, for which I would join a non-native cook and learn a recipe, as well as the stories and or tricks behind it. This is one of my favorites, for the all-important shrimp head trick.
Culinary tour of Africa via the “bullpen”
In addition to World Eats, I began looking for stories of international Atlanta wherever I could find them. When I read about this one in Christiane Lauterbach's wonderful dining newsletter, Knife & Fork, I knew I had to go.
2003 — DeKalb Farmers Market: Table to the world
Your DeKalb Farmers Market has long thrilled, nourished and fascinated my soul. I had, for years, been talking about doing a story, even though the relationship between the store and the paper had been strained due to a previous news story. When the paper sent me to the Poynter Institute for journalists in St. Petersburg, Fla., for a training session, I basically turned it into a workshop for this story, so I could get the A1 editor behind it.
First, I baked a variety of pastries made from market ingredients and sent them, while they were still hot, to Robert and Barbara Blazer, the market’s owners. We had a number of meetings, and they agreed to let me trail several employees through their days and even back to their homes.
Then, I spent two weeks holed up in a friend’s house, away from all distractions. Good thing there were no smartphones back then.
This remains my favorite piece I've written for the AJC.
2004 — Spring dining guide: Tips
The twice-annual dining guides can be an ordeal of dining, writing, photography and deadlines (that sound you just heard is every page editor and story editor at the AJC shuddering upon reading this sentence). But, this is the kind of service journalism that newspapers do best.
Susan Puckett and I brainstormed this offbeat approach for days before pulling the trigger. We hired an actor to play a dining critic giving satirical "tips" on how to assess a restaurant. There was a dog involved. At the Ritz-Carlton.
2005 — Bama or bust: 100 dishes in 7 days: Feast on Alabama’s culinary choices
When the Alabama Bureau of Tourism & Travel decided to print a list of 100 dishes to eat before you die, I took it as a challenge. Photographer Levette Bagwell and I drove all over the state for a week hunting down every dish and providing day-by-day reports.
We ended up only making it to about half of them, but I’m not exactly sad about that.
2006 — Sushi USA
The nearly two years I spent in Japan after graduating from college had a profound impact on the way I think about food. The Japanese have a very different idea of what a meal should look like and how it can satisfy both mental and physical hunger.
As Japanese food — particularly sushi — was becoming popular in the mid-aughts, I wanted to do a deep dive and report on the way Japanese sensibilities were affecting American eating habits.
The whole thing is big and a bit unwieldy, but it remains my greatest interest in food studies.
2007 — First person: Being a Grinch over Christmas decorations
I was really taking a break from food stories this year. In fact, I was eating a mostly vegetarian diet and staying far away from restaurants. Sometimes, a body needs a break.
While I was working on more reported stories, I did write a few columns here and there, such as this one about Christmas decorations in a mixed marriage.
2008 — Going whole hog
I spent most of this year writing general features and enterprise stories for the Sunday paper.
A few of them even found a food angle.
2009 — Comfort is crunch and salt
Over the years, I’ve written a lot about my kids. Many readers have written to say they felt like they saw my kids grow up.
I was mostly careful to avoid using their names or even mentioning how many kids I had. I think there’s something kind of universal in the experience of teaching your kids to love food and cooking. Though I never hesitate to use personal experiences, I always wanted them to be relatable, so I left the details fuzzy.
For the record: three girls — Rachel, Leah and Mary. This is the column I wrote after taking Rachel, the oldest, to college.
2010 — Cutting through all the hype
This was the year I returned to reviewing. It was nice to find my critical voice again.
2011 — Chefs, we need a little more from you
The letter. A few months into my second gig as chief critic, I decided to address what felt like a kind of slippage in the execution and ambition of the city's top restaurants. Man, did I catch some flak for this, but people listened.
2012 — The upstart cattleman
This is the first Personal Journey I wrote for editor Suzanne Van Atten, and what a terrific reporting and writing experience it was.
Will Harris remains an inspiration to many in the “good food” world, and I’m grateful to have helped craft this narrative about his work.
Feast fit for Valhalla
I've written a ton over the years about meals I've enjoyed while traveling. Dinners in France, Japan, Turkey and other places have been fodder for dining stories. None was as much fun as Noma, the influential Danish restaurant. My wife and I camped out on their online reservation site and grabbed one as soon as it appeared.
2013 — Savoring the now
Here's my second Personal Journey, about the remarkable story of Ryan and Jen Hidinger.
Ryan passed a few months after publication. Jen is now getting ready to open Staplehouse, and the Giving Kitchen has provided thousands of dollars in grants to hospitality workers in need.
2014 — 2 critics go to a restaurant and wait … wait … wait …
After so many years of doing this job, everyone around town knows me. I honestly feel bad for waiters who get nervous serving me and managers who can tell the evening isn’t going as well as it should.
When two known critics have to wait for a table far past the promised time? That must be a nightmare. I wanted to know what it was like from the staff's perspective, so after this ordeal I interviewed everyone.
2015 — Brothers’ keepers
The Kinjo brothers, who left such an impact on Atlanta before leaving town, have now returned. Their family history has long fascinated me. I know they weren't thrilled with how deeply I pushed into their backgrounds, but I do hope they know it was done out of deep admiration.
