[title]
Allow me to introduce myself. Hello all, my name is Morgan Carter and I am the new Food and Drink Editor at Time Out New York. I’ve worked as a food writer for about eight years now, first covering the scene in Denver (we are more than a meat and potatoes town—I promise) and now the great city of New York.
As to how I got into food, to be honest, I sort of stumbled into it. I can’t say I have strong, grounding memories of food as a kid. My little hands didn’t drag a stool across the kitchen to watch my mother cobble together gumbo, nor did I have a revelation of a garden-grown tomato as mine were plucked from the store. My childhood was comfortably middle-class and incredibly Americana. Good grades were rewarded with trips to Olive Garden with its prize of unlimited breadsticks and heavy butter-laden pastas. Meanwhile, visits to Applebees only yielded the same order: a cheese pizza—an incredibly flattened personal pie that was likely grabbed from the freezer and chucked into the oven—and a frosty Oreo milkshake. Somehow, my stomach and fortitude for dairy still stand to this day.
Really, it wasn’t until I switched careers from working in a hospital to covering the hospitality scene that I found my stride. From intern to editor, I got my first job in media working at a food magazine in Denver. There, I ate my weight in barbacoa, carne asada and lengua tacos as a judge for a taco festival, graciously plunged my fork into whole hog heads and head cheese and knocked back beers brewed with ghost peppers and Rocky Mountain Oysters.
But what connected me to the profession was the people behind it all—and how, much to my comfort, some people grow up in this profession, while others stumble their way to it. I’ve talked to a chef who found a love for cooking at an early age and followed their passions to summer stints at Michelin-starred revues. But I also talked to a chef who left a career as a divorce lawyer and started a food truck, leaning on her college days living and cooking with her host family in Beijing. I’ve spoken with people who after devastating illnesses figured the best way forward was to help people by feeding them. Especially in the wake of the pandemic, I found a community of people willing to go the distance.
So what about here, what about New York? It should go without saying, but New York is massive, its food scene just as vast. And while PR-backed, big-named chefs restaurants can drive coverage in the scene, New York hums with vendors, pop-ups and streetside cooks, ready and willing to feed those who seek it out. And I’m always ready to stumble in and try the latest.
I fully recognize that I am still one woman with one stomach. But luckily, I always have an appetite. So please, feel free to drop me a line and let me know what’s happening in your corner of the city.
You can email Morgan at Morgan.Carter@timeout.com.