In 1996, Hesser moved back to her family’s home and started a freelance career, contributing to the Washington Post, the Scranton Times, Seventeen, and Country Home. But the remote location of her family’s house — 40 minutes from the closest movie theater — wasn’t conducive to digging up food-trend stories. So Hesser decided to test her survival skills in Los Angeles, where her then-boyfriend lived.
Four days before leaving, she got a message from an editor at the New York Times, who’d heard about her from Jenkins. Four months, two cross-country trips, and numerous interviews later, the 25-year-old Hesser started work as a junior reporter at the Times. It was her first full-time writing job. "I think they were trying to infuse some youth and new voices into their section," Hesser says. "I had a lot of cooking experience, and although I didn’t have a ton of newspaper experience, they liked my writing."
Still, she was decidedly green around the edges. On her first day on the job, her ringing phone left her paralyzed. "I thought, what do I say?" she remembers. "Do I say ‘New York Times’? Do I say ‘Amanda’?" She turned to a co-worker for advice as the phone continued to ring. "How about ‘hello’?" her co-worker suggested.
After Hesser turned in her first piece, editor Rick Flaste told her she needed to work on her nut graph — the short summary of the story at the top of the piece. "I said, ‘What’s a nut graph?’ " she recounts. Flaste rolled his eyes and said, "Get outta here." "I was like, oh God, what have I done?" Hesser recalls. "But you know, they were really very nice to me. And they sort of taught me how to do my job."
Apparently, they were good teachers. Hesser quickly found her voice, becoming a must-read writer in the paper’s Wednesday food section. "The only reason to read it is to see what Amanda’s come up with," says Jenkins. "She’s really producing the most interesting stuff."
Four years later, when beloved food columnist Molly O’Neill left the Times — and with it, her spot in the back of the Magazine — editors solicited advice from Hesser about who could be a good replacement. Hesser suggested some other writers. The editors suggested her. On the fly, she suggested a diary. By the end of the meeting, she had the gig.
From cooking to baking bread, from writing cookbooks to shadowing a gardener, Hesser’s extensive and varied food education — combined with her youthful, breezy flair — truly pervades her style. Whether it’s her book, her newspaper work, or her magazine columns, she brings a snappy, salient enthusiasm to her topics — from oysters to vanilla, leeks to overpriced beverages. She’s able to bring to the page the delight she genuinely feels — as if she’s experiencing taste for the first time.
"You see somebody who goes into the subject an admitted novice but obviously has her eyes open, asks good questions, assimilates the information she gathers, synthesizes it, and turns out a very informative piece," says Colman Andrews, editor-in-chief of food magazine Saveur. "She’s taking delight in what she’s doing, she chooses her words carefully, and she does her homework," adds Barbara Wheaton, Hesser’s French-culinary-history instructor at Radcliffe.
With her "Food Diary" columns, Hesser reaches beyond an audience of people obsessed with things like cheese-pasteurization legislation and the latest spice craze, by weaving food talk into anecdotes about her own life: her fiancŽ, Mr. Latte, washing dishes the wrong way; an exciting and slightly embarrassing dinner with "indomitable" Vogue scribe Jeffrey Steingarten; travels to Italy with her family. She also recounts more revealing moments: asking obvious questions of Julia Child; flubbing dishes at her first dinner party for Mr. Latte’s friends; even tripping in excitement on her way to a much-anticipated meal. "[Her work] is very accessible," notes Andrews. "A large measure of her success is people saying, ‘Gee, it’s just like me.’ "
This style gives Hesser’s accounts of top tables, insider conversations, and far-too-expensive-for-you meals an engrossing quality. "She tells a story, and she puts food into a story that gives it a life," observes Jody Adams. "She tells you quite intimate details about eating and being in New York and what it feels like to have your derriŹre on a chair," notes Sheryl Julian. "They’re kind of cozy columns," says Dina Cheney, an aspiring food writer in New York. "She provides very quotidian details about what it feels like to be a food writer in Manhattan."
As a result, the fanciful, self-revealing, and crisply written pieces appeal not only to chefs, foodies, and fashionistas, but also to people interested in reading about romance, family life, and friendships. In Hesser’s columns, food is merely a vehicle for self-revelation, something that happens during peoples' conversations, interactions, and life experiences. "Since she’s young," says Steingarten, "she should appeal to younger people, even though she might not be using jargon or pop-music metaphors." And as the New York Times reportedly seeks a more populist readership — as evidenced by recent articles on Botox and Mariah Carey on the paper’s front page — it’s no surprise that Hesser has received such a prominent platform for her work.
