Like I did last August, I’m going to focus the month on “writing life” pieces. If you’d like to revisit last year’s, there was: “On To-Do Lists and My Notebooks“; “For Better Writing”; “On Affirmations”; “On Money.” And while our weekly salons in the Discord are on hiatus until September 7, conversations are still happening and we’ve added a marketplace channel for exchanging goods. My Friday posts will be coming out per usual, so expect Recommends this week.
If you’ve forgotten who I am and why you’re here, please find my bio and links to past work, books, etc. at my website.
We’ve sloughed off a lot of members since I moved this newsletter from Substack in June 2025 (which will be a good thing in the long run, I think, though it’s certainly hurt in the short term) and the reason I’ve been paywalling more is that I want to remind folks who continue to open every issue that the work I do here—writing on how, to quote Public Books, “the politics and culture of modern life are the politics and culture of the food system”—the community; reading, watching, and eating roundups; and salon and book club programming are worth the price of admission. I certainly think they’re worth, at the lowest priced option, $30 per year.
The only distribution channels for Tomato Tomato are this newsletter list and an Instagram profile. I’ve toyed with other ideas, but I don’t know what’s useful in this day and age—what is worth the effort? What brings new, engaged readers to food writing about culture that doesn’t prioritize restaurants, recipes, or trends but dispatches from place, language, and relationships? Is there anything I can do that doesn’t cost money and take time away from my work that I enjoy, my work that I feel matters? Does anything matter anymore when online behavior has been cannibalized by AI and dictated by platforms?
I believe, or at least I hope, that we can overcome the platform age, and that’s a large part of why I moved my newsletter off of Substack: I don’t want to create content for a tech company and pay them 10% of my earnings for the privilege. Apps make user behavior conform to their desires, not the other way around. I want to publish digital magazines.
In a time when glossies are changing the titles of “editor” to “content creator” and publishing plenty of slop that suits the shift, I’d rather put editorial chops developed over 16-plus years to work doing actual editing than seeking out brand partnerships and forcing affiliate links on readers. I know that I’m not the only one, too; every publication is bringing something unique to the food media landscape.
Summer Essay Workshops in August: personal (TOMORROW), reported, and cultural criticism. These will be presentations followed by discussions. Each has three essays to read—no food included, a mix of old and new. Choose day or evening sessions. We’re really having fun in these talking about our questions, concerns, and processes for approaching essay.
The Food Essay returns in the fall. You can also get my workshop downloads.
For the sake of transparency and why I use August to professionally recalibrate: I’m working on a new book proposal, completing assignments for other outlets, pitching again, and generally hustling in the Chris Kraus mode of “not in a pejorative sense, but as a necessary, tactical logistic.” If you’d like to work with me, I’m here and open to it. After the jump, more about how my specific editorial experiences have influenced how I work today.
Throwing it back in these photos to 2018 bylines.
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