In fact, I won’t even be doing all of the writing here. I’m commissioning articles from food and culture writers around the world; they’ll be a mix of short “try this, you’ll love it” pieces and longer (but not longform) features. Coming up we’ve got a history of British afternoon tea, a dive into New Mexico’s Rio Grande cuisine, and the story of one New Jersey town becoming a food destination, on the strength of its restrictive liquor laws, somehow. Today, we’re starting with dispatches from Annapolis and Chicago.

I’m paying contributors about $1/word which, sadly, is a pretty dang good rate for food media. In a couple months I’ll be switching this to a paid-subscription format: here’s hoping I’ve convinced you to give us money by then. (Speaking of which, if you want to buy ad space here or be a journalism fairy godparent and help out financially because you’re an angel, email me at katherine@tablecakes.com.) Right now I’m thinking this newsletter will publish every other week - Substack, our host, would prefer I post more than once a week, but I’m not convinced that’s the way to go for this particular project. If you have thoughts about that, let me know.