Food & Lifestyle Book Collaborations * Recipe Development * Print Journalism * Content Creation
Instagram: Jenn.Garbee
Twenty years of experience in food and lifestyle journalism, creative storytelling and recipe development, professional recipe testing, writing, food styling, and project management, including custom publishing and expansive, multi-year brand development projects. Extensive experience working with cookbook authors (chefs, celebrities, influencers, and brands) to develop original content and recipes in the author’s voice and for a targeted audience. Proposal and concept development, book collaborations (writing, editing, “fixing”), professional recipe testing and recipe development, as well as project management, including photo shoots.
The Reality: A big thank you to everyone I’ve worked with over the years.
I love working with people, discovering and sharing their stories, and those people are the reason I am still here. Those stories are often told through food and recipes, from mom-and-pop shops to great chefs (including some illicit ones, which led to my first book, Secret Suppers), but I’ve also been utterly charmed by a Santa Monica Pier street performer, got into pickin’ with the new gen of old-time musicians, and been enlightened by the Eight Clown Commandments, a code of ethics that I was introduced to by LA’s underground clown network. I’ve made that connection with people in many ways over my career, from my work as a newspaper journalist and later freelance writer for many magazines, pivoting into corporate creative content development (including custom magazines and feature-length books on beer, cheese, and other delicious topics), and now (mainly) back to books: collaborating with authors on their story-driven lifestyle and cookbooks.
I took the slow path to get here, and I’d be lying if I said it was always glorious, because nothing that’s worthwhile is great all the time. (If you’ve got a few detractors in your “inner” family circle, you’re probably doing something right.) I gave up an established career in fine art museums after secretly (gasp!) studying for a culinary degree at Le Cordon Bleu on weekends, followed by a late-night stage at Lucques under Suzanne Goin (life altering). I somehow got a toe in the door at LA Times Food section as a test kitchen intern (thanks in part to the great food historian Charles Perry, who encouraged me to scribble my name on that raffle ticket), all while keeping the trusty day job. (The cat jumped out of the bag when I started writing stories for the newspaper, and my name was printed in the Wednesday Food section for all to see – the kick I needed to finally give up that “practical” career.) Over the years at the LAT, I worked as a reporter in the Food, Travel, and Calendar (arts/music) sections, along with the LA Times Magazine, covering chefs and farmers, true old-school “artisan” food businesses, food history, craft and home brewing, cooking and baking, and whatever else came my way. (A list of some of my favorite articles is here.) That old-school newspaper education (and it was a true education) was an honor and a hell of a lot of hard a*s work, work that led to many years as a magazine (Cooking Light, Los Angeles Magazine, Robb Report, Bon Appetit, Epicurious) and newspaper columnist for other papers beyond the LAT (Tribune wire, LA Weekly, et al). To all of the incredible people I have worked with: thank you. I wouldn’t be here without you.
Still reading? (Probably not!) With books – what I mainly do today – it doesn’t matter whether you’re a great chef, the kindest and most inspiring person who loves people as much as food, or prefer to go all out on Flamin’ Hots while you blast out the DJ tunes for 20M followers on social media, there’s got to be something to learn, and a good story to tell, or it’s not worth the adventure. (Bonus points for anyone who can convince people to forget about wiping the mud off their boots for a few darn hours and stick their hands in the beautiful world of composted rubbish already, as I’m a sucker for anything in the garden.) And books, oh my, are always an adventure.
