Welcome to the Messy Epicure!

The beginning of my obsession with food dates to when I was seven years old. My dad makes chicken soup from scratch every year for Passover (the matzo balls have always come from a box though), and when I was seven he shared the knowledge of his secret ingredient.

A secret ingredient! My mom didn’t know, my little sister didn’t know! I was hooked.

Writing came later; freshman year of high school I followed a crush to a literary magazine meeting. The crush never worked out, but I graduated college eight years later having been editor-in-chief of both Stevenson High School’s The Wit and the Tulane Review. So there’s the writing bug.

I’ve managed to make writing about food my livelihood for nearly five years, with stints at CHOW.com, Cottage Living, Cooking Light, and VisitSouth.com. I’ve become a full-fledged foodie: I’ll lecture you on the evils of processed food a la Michael Pollan, I buy all my bacon online from Benton’s (objectively, the world’s best bacon), I’ve even helped a friend raise and slaughter a pig, then home-cured my own salami and pancetta.

But what’s remained constant through all this is that I can’t keep my kitchen clean when I’m cooking. From my first experiences cracking eggs or stirring stuff (under close parental supervision, of course), through my latest experiments in gourmandise, I always end up with a stain on my shirt, a sinkful of dirty dishes, and puddles of spill all over the counter and floor. There’s a purple splotch on my kitchen ceiling right now in fact, the result of an unfortunate blender eruption.

And thus, the Messy Epicure. I’ll use this blog to document recipes, restaurants, and any- and everything else about food that strikes my fancy. (And maybe zombie movies. I’m a big fan of zombie movies.)

So welcome, enjoy, and bon appetit. If you want to see more from me, check out 10 Spots, my column in B-Metro magazine, or my Twitter feed. And leave a comment! What do you want to hear about?