Tomato Tomato is the name of the literary magazine of food writing that I’ll be launching at the end of this month as a new occasional newsletter vertical and hopeful print annual (if you’re on this list, you’ll be on that list—the email will just look different and come on the final Friday of the month). It’s also the name of our member community Discord, where we have a weekly chat on Monday afternoons, as well as share what we’re reading, cooking, eating, watching, etc. as the muse moves us.

Basically: Tomato Tomato is becoming the broader world of From the Desk of Alicia Kennedy. It’s the stuff that expands beyond me as writer, author, and journalist.

Together, we’ve been adding well over 500 restaurants to a global map. The only rule is these must be places where vegans and vegetarians are welcome. I’d like it to become even more extensive, if you’d like to join up and add your favorites, as well as use it as a big head-start when planning your travels. I’ve gotten great feedback already from folks who’ve followed its recommendations in new places.

This week, we’ve also launched a global indie shop list, where folks can add their favorite boutiques, bookstores, florists, hardware stores, and more, so that we can support small local businesses when in different cities. I never think about these acts as mere transactions: It’s usually in these places that you can be connected with the work of an artisan you’d never heard of, strike up a conversation that leads to a friendship, or find something you never knew you needed. You can access these maps in the Discord—if you upgrade your subscription, you’ll automatically receive an invitation—or at the member page here on my newsletter. Make sure you’re logged in. (This page also includes my personal maps, and I’m working on a big San Juan update.)

A big reason that I left Substack last year was so that I could reinvest the 10 percent of revenue they took into launching Tomato Tomato, the magazine. Your membership here doesn’t just support me as a writer, but will form the base of a new space for food writing that is fun and global. I am a nerd, but I am a nerd with great taste. Join the club.

The fun thing about recording my audiobook during the first week of February was the “no dairy” mandate in the instructions. In effect, I was doing Method Reading: taking the LIRR, which I did so often as a teen and commuting to college at Fordham; being vegan again, which started in my mid-twenties; and eating the Black Seed Bagel sesame with almond butter and raspberry jam before working in an office, like when I was at Food & Wine for the first six months of my thirties.