Books

Menopause is a physiological and psychosocial event, a cultural construct, and a deeply personal experience, all woven together in a jumbled knot. Published in the summer of 2023, The Menopause Companion: A Beginner’s Guide to Owning Your Transition From Peri To Post is a to-the-point guide focused on untangling —or at least loosening —that knot. Think of this guide less as a how-to and more as a how-about menopause book that offers digestible information and tools to support each individual in identifying and navigating their best path through this transition.

Published in the fall of 2012, the Cheesemaker's Apprentice was a dream project that allowed me to reach out to many of my heroes in the cheese industry and interview them about what they felt was important within their areas of expertise. This book was a collaborative effort with avid home cheesemaker David Bleckmann who wrote and tested all of the recipes, and Leela Cyd who contributed the majority of photographs.

Published in 2010, the Guide to West Coast Cheese is an encyclopedic work documenting the breadth of artisan cheese being produced in California, Oregon, and Washington at that time. This project provided a fantastic opportunity for me to visit cheesemakers across the coastal states and expand my vocabulary for describing cheese!

Imperfect Guides Series

These guides evolved from the belief that a small amount of sound information and encouragement goes a long way toward improving everyday affairs.

At first blush, the topics covered in these booklets may look scattershot, but they are tied together by the kind of loneliness that lurks around the day-to-day challenges of life. They’re about stuff you think maybe you should know more about, but don’t. These guides create opportunities for connection and conversation and offer proof that you’re not the only one who could use a little help. (shop)

Cheese By Hand

In the summer of 2006, I coerced my husband into taking four months to travel around the United States, visiting nearly forty artisan cheesemakers. This project was born from my desire to understand the people behind the incredible cheeses I was selling in volume to restaurants and consumers in my role as a cheesemonger at a busy cheese shop in NYC. 

Hand-crafted cheese made in the U.S. was finally attracting attention not only at home but also in European markets. While Europeans had volumes of history surrounding their food traditions — especially regional cheeses — in America, if cheesemakers had anything at all (and that's a big if), it was a single page of marketing material on their website. So I went in search of answers to the questions I had about who these people were, what motivated them, and why they made the cheeses they made.

We kept a blog throughout the project and created podcasts (available on iTunes) from our recorded interviews with the cheesemakers we visited.

Read and listen to the archives HERE

Digital & Physical Printed Matter

I am greatly inspired by the well-crafted sentences, thoughtfully curated publications, and emotive images of others. Here are the places and publications that have featured my work.

Communal Table
Work Is Life, Staff Accordingly (Staff Issue)
Diner Journal
The Real Chupa Cabra (Issue 7)
Still Life: Shellfish with Regulations (Issue 8)
Alone Among Many (Issue 25)
Culture Magazine
Cheese Got Your Tongue (Winter 2016)
How We Roll (Fall 2014)
Ochoa Cheese (Spring 2013)
Portland Round Up (Winter 2012)
Mix Magazine
Good Cheese Column (April-November 2011)