I never set out to have a career in food. In college, I double-majored in English and Sociology, with thesis projects that only barely touched upon food culture, cooking, or eating of any kind. (The briefest mention of food appeared in my senior English thesis on representations of American consumer culture in White Noise by Don DeLillo and Lolita by Vladimir Nabokov, and in particular the flattened aesthetic allure of the American grocery store and fast-food joint. High culinary cultural analysis, indeed.) After years of working on the literary magazine housed at my liberal arts college, I landed a job as a managing editorial assistant at Alfred A. Knopf soon after graduation, a dream for any former English major. It wasn’t until the 2008 recision, and the general slowdown of professional advancement that followed, that I found myself dabbling in food content. Because Knopf had published Mastering the Art of French Cooking, as well as most if not all of the books by Nora Ephron, we hosted a private screening of the movie “Julie & Julia.” Unsurprisingly, I was immediately hooked, and immediately volunteered to write about the Knopf backlist of cookbook authors on the company’s marketing website, as part of their larger push to promote the classic cookbook alongside the movie’s release. (Vis-a-vis what that volunteering actually entailed and what it taught me, I chronicle that more fully here.) There was a direct line between the work I did for the marketing site—done after-hours, madly testing recipes and typing out my thoughts at home much as I do here—and the next gig I was offered: the chance to learn how to edit recipes directly from Judith Jones.
Each subsequent step in my food career came not by virtue of a formal job opening or invitation to interview, but via similar small chances to raise my hand and share my knowledge. I pooled my vacation days at Knopf to do a month-long stage at a restaurant in Washington State, an opportunity that first came from a day of volunteering at a pop-up dinner hosted by that restaurant’s visiting chef. While editing cookbooks, I worked once a week at a Michelin-starred restaurant on the Upper West Side, a chance to embed myself in how cooks worked on the line. My job at the Smithsonian came from a cold email in response to a press release, which led to an informational interview. That interview, meant to be 30 minutes long, turned into a two-hour-long conversation, followed by my volunteering at the museum’s food-focused event that night. Subsequent opportunities to do freelance research, teach guest classes, write and edit recipes all came not from formal job postings, but from a network of individuals I cultivated across those many different contact points in food. If I did anything right throughout my time in graduate school, it was to never take myself fully out of the freelance food world—and to strategically say yes to countless opportunities for collaboration, even when they were underpaid or entirely uncompensated.
Almost every professional opportunity I have ever had came via moments of unsolicited, unpaid labor—showing up, showing I could do the work, and sharing my time and knowledge as though it cost me nothing, all to be in the company of other people whose work I admire and whose network I hope to join with my own. At countless points throughout my career, I have worked for free. I have had unpaid internships and kitchen stages, I’ve asked for and participated in countless informational interviews, done test edits and written “on spec”, given away hard-earned vacation days to volunteer my time and talent with those I care about. This past weekend, I volunteered at an out-of-state food event—one that I’ll expand upon more in the future, I’m sure—and spent my time unpacking boxes, bussing tables, stuffing gift bags, and generally being game to do whatever needed doing. I did this while going out of pocket for my own train ticket and lodging, but also justifying said cost by virtue of what it would offer in terms of face-time with other people in the food world. Even though most of my face time was with my fellow volunteers (brilliantly talented, all of them) rather than the culinary glitterati, I felt the time was well-spent—but also undoubtedly proof of the privilege it takes to do real work for free.
The industries that trade on prestige—the proximity to creative power, influence, and glamor—depend on hoards of clamoring volunteers, unpaid interns, and staffers willing to take a very low pay check to get their work done. Just as these industries catered to privileged readers, they also depend on a pre-existing level of privilege—economic, cultural, etc.—among the people who can afford to work for them. I have absolutely benefitted from this privilege, and had I had substantial debt to pay off, been the sole caregiver for my family, major health crises to manage, or any number of other limitations on my time and energy, there is no way I could have pursued the career I have. Though food itself is a highly accessible subject, building a career as a food writer, thinker, or critic is far from a lucrative endeavor, and you spend far more time eating prestige than you do genuine profits. This may be changing with the digital landscape, in which a single author can find themselves with lucrative branding or advertising prospects—but that point of success depends on years of hustling and creating content with no remuneration in site. When I meet with young people looking to develop food careers, I feel it’s my job to be frank about the economic realities of what it means to do this work. I can’t in good conscience tell someone shouldering hundreds of thousands of dollars in debt to take on a job that pays them less than minimum wage. When a smart soon-to-be-graduate, soon to inherit a mountain of student loans, is choosing between a lucrative consulting gig and an entry-level publishing job, the math is sadly against the continuation of the creative arts.
And yet, despite the wildly out-of-touch nature of some that would make the same remarks, I do believe that not all professional choices should be made on the basis of paycheck alone. At each stage of my career, I had the power and privilege to follow my creative passions, and volunteering or donating my labor was a key component of part of that pursuit. While they should be never be pursued in lieu of compensation, volunteer spaces offer a valuable opportunity for building and engaging with broader professional communities, and for individuals to find new points of entry into the networks that will feed their development. For me, it has also been a chance to signal to those I want to impress that there is no form of work too small or unimportant for me to contribute to, and that I recognize that all contributors to a workplace—from the staff in a mailroom to the administrative assistants to the senior directors—deserve respect, support, and acknowledgment for their work.
I don’t expect all readers to agree that volunteer labor is worthwhile, and I fully expect some of you to push back on the perspective I’m sharing here. There is a lot of reform needed to address the inherent inequity of the unpaid labor marketplace, and even more to be done to own up to when privilege has paved the way for professional success. All work is worthy of compensation and recognition, no matter how big or prestigious the audience for it. But the balance between work and reward constitutes both a material and symbolic exchange, and neither scale should go empty.
When I meet with those undergraduates seeking advice for their future careers, we have long substantive conversations about what they want their lives to look like, what they care about, what financial and social support they need to succeed. But I also tell them to get a piece of paper, draw a line down the middle, and make two lists. The first list, on the lefthand side of the paper, should be everything that the person believes they are good at. No task or skill is too small—scheduling meetings, making coffee, taking out the trash, doing dishes—anything that gives them a sense of worth and confidence in their own abilities. On the righthand side of the paper comes the second list: every person, place, company, brand, or institution that the person admires, that they would be happy to just walk around all day, a place where they would be thrilled to be there even if their only job was to take lunch orders.
The final step, then, is to figure out how a person gets their talents from the left-hand column to the right, to find ways to show their value in the places it deserves to be seen, and to get noticed by the people who should recognize their excellence. Whether that journey occurs in a job interview, a coffee chat, a freelance opportunity, or a day of volunteering, any chance to move from A to B is a chance to be seized. And once the showing up turns into a job offer, then you fight tooth and nail to receive what you are worth.
Recommended Reading: The most excellent Piglet by Lottie Hazell, which I just finished last week and am dying to talk about with more people!
The Perfect Bite: During my time in NYC last week, I had a sublime meal with friends at KJUN, a great Korean-Cajun mashup spot in the East 30s. Everything was delicious, but my absolute favorite bite was the spicy corn “maque choux”. Awaiting corn season so I can attempt to recreate it at home…
Cooked & Consumed: At a Passover seder earlier this week, I was thrilled to sample my mom’s go-to brisket recipe, this excellent version from Melissa Clark at the NYT. As we slowly make our way towards the peak of summer fruit season, I’m excited to try variations on this and other fruit-based meat dishes on the grill, if only to get more of that sweet-savory balance into our meal rotation.