Before I start writing at length about fluffy cakes, pastries, and all the sweet things you’re probably here for, I wanted to use this first longform installment to introduce myself. If I’ve learned anything in ten years of working in this industry, it’s that every critic, every opinion, is biased in one way or another and that it’s generally useful to have some context.
And while I believe it takes time to get to know your critic, to trust their palate, I also like the immediacy of sharing my story. In fact, I can tell you right now that I’m partial to buttery desserts — butter cakes, buttercream, buttery toffee. I can appreciate other things, but I love these more than anything else.
Next time, I promise, I’ll get back to writing about dessert.
In 2008, I started a blog called Eating the Big Apple. It was a repository for short notes on what I was cooking and eating as a 24 year old newly living in New York. I was renting a tiny studio apartment that, as my husband likes to remind me now, sat above a particularly aromatic fish market on the Upper East Side. Each winter, I had to crack open my only window as the building’s feverous heat clanged through the pipes. Still, it was my little haven in the big city and I loved it.
Eating the Big Apple was something of a haven, too. I was working a nine-to-five marketing job writing research surveys and staring into an existential abyss of cross-tabs. The blog became a creative outlet, a space where I documented late night bread baking experiments and Sunday mornings frosting cupcakes at a bakery in the West Village.
Suffice it to say, Eating the Big Apple didn’t take off. I think my unique daily views peaked somewhere around 60 and honestly, I was okay with that. I recently revisited the blog and in a 2010 post about Wylie Dufresne’s molecular gastronomy restaurant wd~50 I noted, “While still reeling over what and how and why, our empty plates were whisked away and entrees took their place.” Yes, that sounds like me.
I’m telling you all this because the blog was a foreshadowing. It was the start of an adventure that, in some ways, has come full circle. This is kind of a blog too, isn’t it?
If my life has been a series of starts, where does the start of this story begin? Not at the very beginning. Maybe it’s somewhere in the middle.
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My first, most consequential new beginning was in 2002, the year I moved to the U.S. from Hong Kong for college. I had lived in H.K. for nearly all of my 18 years, it was the only home I knew. But, as a Pakistani expat in a predominantly Chinese city, I never really fit in. I was a third culture kid with restlessness baked into my bones.
This might seem like a stretch, but I can make a pretty good case — even if it’s just metaphorical — that my sweet tooth drove me to America. My own Proustian memories stem from the Betty Crocker baking book in my mom’s kitchen; its gossamer pages as bronzed and blotted with oil as the classic American cookies and donuts we used to bake.
Before 2002, I had been to America exactly three times: Hawai’i, where I ate bubblegum ice cream for the first time; California, where my greatest memory of Disney Land is buying a lollypop bigger than my face; and Chicago, where I fell in love in a mall with the caramel and chocolate nut confection known as a turtle. America was sweetness in abundance to me.
So, at 18, I left everything behind and moved to Hollywood. It was Downtown Los Angeles to be more precise, which, unbeknownst to me, was really not the same thing.
My next big start was in 2008, the year I escaped Los Angeles for New York. I’ve been sifting through my memories of L.A. and the only thing I can come up with is that those six years were devoid of sweetness. Eventually, I made peace with the fact that L.A. was not the right fit for me, though it could be for someone else.
New York, new me.
In 2011, I started spending a few hours every Sunday morning frosting cupcakes during the opening shift at a bakery called Sweet Revenge. At the time, cupcakes were at peak trend status and Sweet Revenge smartly married the aesthetics of artisanal cupcakes with a liquor license.
Soon after that, I quit my comfortable but uninspiring job in marketing and enrolled in the Food Studies program at NYU in the hopes of making a career out of my love for food. I studied under great professors like Marion Nestle, Krishnendu Ray, and Irene Sax and while the experience nurtured my love for academic thinking, crude necessity (visas and money) led me elsewhere.
Here, the restarts get interesting.
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My most unexpected restart was in 2014, when I became a restaurant critic for Michelin North America. As far as I know, I was the first South Asian inspector in the French company’s 100-plus year history.
Very quickly, my life turned inside out. Dinner became work and I became very good at eating out, alone. I went to London to train (eat) and while I was there, the English team taught me how to think critically about food. I’ll never forget my first lesson: the novice critic is quick to spot a flaw, but judging a chef’s intent against their execution is a more nuanced skill.
In my four-plus years as an inspector, I encountered the best tarte Tatin I’ve ever had in my life; I plowed through technically complex St. Honoré cakes and archetype apple pies; I had baskets of the country’s best restaurant breads; I ate far too many tasting menu ice creams (the best were always more savory than sweet); and more mignardises than I can remember, though I do remember the legendary petit fours from Manresa restaurant in California circa 2019.
I’m sure I’ll talk more about this elsewhere, but in short, those years changed everything.
My greatest reinvention, though, was in 2017, the year my daughter was born. I knew right away my days at Michelin were numbered. At the time, U.S. inspectors traveled three out of four weeks, pretty much year-round. I would spend a week eating out in New York and then be off to some other city for the rest of the month. I couldn’t fathom being a parent with that sort of schedule.
Leaving Michelin and venturing into media was like peeking my head out from behind the curtain at Oz. That’s not to say that we were anything like the Wiz, all smoke and mirrors. In fact, one of the most frustrating things about working at Michelin was not being able to convey to the public the amount of work that led to our final judgements. How could a few symbols do justice to the hours of eating, thinking, and debating that went into some of our biggest, most consequential decisions?
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I’ve always secretly hoped that writing would be my final reinvention. But how to bridge the gap between writing and becoming a writer? A good cold pitch is a good place to start.
In 2019, I sent a pivotal email that led to my first byline in The New York Times. It was positioned something like this: I used to work for Michelin, but my true passion is writing about immigrant cuisines because I, too, am an immigrant. I’m forever grateful to Sam Sifton and Emily Weinstein for reading that moonshot and saying, why not.
My first story was a review for Hungry City, the paper’s secondary restaurant review column. It was about Joey Bats Café, a family-owned bakery making excellent pastéis de nata, and it was the first of what would become a monthly contribution. I’ll never get over the thrill of connecting with people who came to New York in search of something only to find it in food. Then telling their stories on one of the biggest platforms in the world.
What a dream.
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In 2020, Covid changed everything. Freelancing became another reinvention, maybe. I spent four years hustling and learning. I worked on some brilliant stories; many of them about desserts and pastry chefs. In 2022, I was nominated for a James Beard Foundation media award for a column I wrote for Resy challenging the Eurocentricity of good taste in restaurants.
Still, even in all this work, I felt that I was hardly writing. Instead, I was spending a lot of time pitching stories, transcribing interviews, and questioning my life choices while rewriting what I thought were perfectly darling sentences. I needed a better writing practice. Also, I missed being a critic. Going out to dinner every day is less desirable for me now, on account of my six year old, but you know what is perfect for a midday review? Bakeries.
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And so, that puts me here, in January 2024. A new year, another new start. This time, I am stepping into the world of self-publishing. I’m giving up the security of an editor, going forth with the wisdom of my grad school writing teacher and a few good bylines. I now exist in a constant state of saying, Just Making Sure You Saw My Thing.
They say work will never love you back. But I’m hoping that building a community of sweets-lovers will be fulfilling in a way that the daily grind isn’t.
And if you’re not yet convinced, I really do love sweets. I am a Dessert Person. There is always Room for Dessert. To me, The Last Course is the best course. And cake is so much More Than Cake. If you’re with me, you’re with me.
In the end, I hope that this will all turn out something like Janet Malcolm’s Forty-one False Starts, a consecutive reading of new beginnings that somehow, in sum, tell a perfectly whole story. As for Sweet City, my hope is that together, we’ll discover some great places to eat dessert.
I am beyond excited to get started. Thank you so much for beginning here with me.
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Holy crap! I'm so glad I came across your newsletter and I can't wait to read everything!
I loved the chance to get to know your thoughts this way, candidly and sweet! Also very curious--would you be able to share more on how you got into Michelin inspecting?