How Amanda Hesser Changed the Way We Cook
I was somewhat of a late bloomer in media. I didn’t know I wanted to work in magazines until my sophomore year of college, and even then, I was hesitant. The idea of being a food writer intrigued me, but I didn’t really understand what that meant or how to get there; I knew it wasn’t the same thing as being a restaurant critic, nor was it someone who developed recipes (at least not entirely).
It wasn’t until I read Amanda Hesser’s Cooking for Mr. Latte that I found a new type of food writing that appealed to me. It was warm and funny. Food was a thread in the book, but so was friendship and romance. It was also the first time I was reading recipes that sounded like they had been written by an actual person, not a robot. Amanda Hesser taught me that food and writing are at their best when they’re not perfect—when you acknowledge that mistakes are as much a part of cooking as they are life. You loosen your apron ties, maybe accidentally drop a pie crust on the floor, get messy over and over again, and have fun with it—that’s the best kind of relationship a home cook (or writer) can have with their craft.