Welcome to Au Gratin, a fun place for food writing
A newsletter for food, travel and culinary history.
What do you do for fun when your hobby becomes your career?
I remember pressing “publish” on my very first blog post on The Food Girl in Town vividly. It was just after midnight in September 2012, and I was sitting in bed in our basement apartment in Halifax — after a few weeks of hitting the streets it was starting to dawn on me that my master’s in art history wasn’t going to set me up with the killer gallery job I thought I could easily get.
So, in an effort to occupy myself while Adam started law school, I started a blog. A hobby to explore my new city by eating and telling people (mostly my mom) about it. Within a few years, people started recognising me on the street (okay, like two people, but still), and I started writing about food for other publications. My freelance career took off.
Now, over a decade later the imposter syndrome has almost subsided, and I feel fortunate about my food writing career, but I don’t have any hobbies; there’s not much to help me relax. Talking about food was my hobby but it’s now my career — can it be both?
In today’s world, where even the most mundane of hobbies is expected to be monetized — “hey, you should sell those on Etsy” — and side hustle has replaced the term pastime, how do I extricate my love for cooking and dining from the need to put the proverbial food on the table?
This is why The Food Girl in Town has about one new post a year now. Every time I sit to write a new post that little capitalistic voice in the back of my head is saying “you could sell this idea and make some money instead of wasting it on your blog.”
After years of soul searching, meditating, and many trips to the art supply store in an attempt to start new hobbies, I’ve come to the realization that food and me, well, we’re in it for life.
The truth of the matter is, food permeates every part of my life — whether it's celebrating with my husband, deciding where to go on vacation or even choosing where I shop. But I’ve realized I can write about food for work AND write about food for fun, that I can post about my latest dining experience on Instagram but also choose not to post a story about the new recipe I’m working on. Chopping peppers is relaxing to me, and reading cookbooks is a great pastime (and, luckily, the yoga stuck and I’m still reading historical fiction voraciously).
So, what do I do for fun now that my hobby is my career? Well, I’m still cooking, dining, and eating, but for fun, which is why I’m starting this newsletter.
Au Gratin is all about putting the fun back in my food, so I can tell stories about the food and the people and the history I want to without that little corporate voice telling me to pitch this fun tidbit to a news outlet instead.
This also means there’s more fun being brought into your kitchen!
This newsletter is The Food Girl in Town 2.0, a new place for me to write about food with abandon, letting me write the harsh truths about trends and the restaurant industry, culinary history and talk about the fire poops I get after too much buffalo chicken dip. I’ve been sitting on this Substack account for more than a year now, but I’m finally making the jump to post at least once a month (spoiler alert, there will be a lot about cheese).
Here’s what you can expect on Au Gratin:
Recipes
Unlike The Food Girl in Town, I’ll be sharing more recipes, the recipes people are always DMing me about, but also historical recreations of iconic restaurant dishes the world over (like the Eggplant with Buttermilk Sauce from Ottolenghi in London and the Kobe Beef Lettuce Wrap from Adelaide Oyster house here in St. John’s).
Travel Guides
Now that we’re all travelling again, I’m excited to talk about the best places I ate in places like Vancouver, Auckland, and Rome (Las Vegas is coming soon too) and discuss the importance (and pitfalls) of culinary tourism.
Food Trends
From restaurant memories like that time, we ate at the best wrong restaurant in Paris to why I hate QR code menus so very much — and I’ll probably talk about that viral baked feta pasta.
Culinary History
I’ll dive into the origin stories of your favourite dishes like how the Caesar Salad was invented in Tijuana or the reason we have salt and pepper shakers on the table but no other spices.
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Love reading everything you write!
Congratulations Gabby so delighted to see this on your amazing culinary journey