Darlene Casten
Darlene Casten covers the food beat for the Calgary Herald, with a focus on how local restaurants and their owners gain broader recognition through rankings and televised competitions. Her recent work tracks key moments for the city’s dining scene, from national “best of” lists to appearances on Food Network shows. She writes in a clear, news-driven style that highlights what is happening in restaurants rather than offering criticism or personal opinion.
Calgary restaurants in national rankings
A central strand in Casten’s coverage is Calgary restaurants being singled out on national lists and awards. In a recent article on five Calgary restaurants making Canada’s 100 Best Restaurants list, she reports on which local establishments were named and places them within the wider Canadian dining landscape. The piece underscores her attention to recognition that comes from outside the city, while still grounding the story in the specifics of Calgary’s restaurant community. She uses this kind of ranking coverage to signal which venues are shaping the local scene and how they measure up nationally.
Local owners on Food Network competition
Casten also reports on Calgary restaurant owners as they move onto national television platforms. In her story on Calgary restaurant owners debuting in the Pitmasters Food Network competition, she covers the timing of their appearance and the premise of the show, positioning the episode as a milestone for the participating businesses. The focus on owners entering a televised barbecue competition shows her interest in how individual restaurateurs represent the city’s food culture beyond the local market. This kind of coverage blends business and human-interest angles, explaining what the exposure means for the restaurants while keeping the story anchored in the food they serve.
Food beat focused on restaurant news
Across these articles, Casten’s work stays close to restaurant news rather than recipe content or home cooking. She writes concise pieces that inform readers about developments affecting where they might choose to eat, such as which places have been honoured on national lists or will be featured on television. Her coverage is framed around the establishments and their owners, using events like rankings and competitions as hooks to tell the story of the city’s evolving dining options. For sources assessing fit, she is a reporter whose work consistently centres on Calgary restaurants, their public recognition, and their role in the broader Canadian food scene.
4 more food journalists.
Al Culliton
Al Culliton is a writer and historian whose work focuses on the American cocktail as a living part of food and culture, using obscure, historic drinks to show how bars, spirits and cities change. They write reported features that trace how forgotten recipes move from old bar guides back onto modern menus, reconstructing how cocktails originally tasted and explaining how new builds reshape them. Their beat is revived classics, regional specialties and low-proof aperitifs, covered one drink at a time with close attention to specs, technique, glassware and service. They write about cocktails as cultural artifacts tied to specific communities and geographies, using single recipes to explore place, identity, regional traditions and diaspora histories. Across masthead work and recipe writing, they combine primary-source research with present-day reporting from working bars, in precise, accessible prose grounded in technical detail.
Alaina Chou
Alaina Chou stands out for rigorously testing food and kitchen products and turning those hands-on trials into clear shopping advice. She is a commerce writer at Bon Appétit and Epicurious, where she makes newsletters and shopping guides for home cooks. Her beat is food commerce, with coverage of air fryers, meal kits, protein powders, pepper grinders, electrolyte drinks, and cookbooks. She focuses on what is worth buying, how it performs, how it tastes, and how it fits daily routines and wellness. She also writes sale-driven lists and roundup pieces, and she has worked on Bon Appétit’s Feel Good Food Plan. Her reporting is practical, direct, and grounded in product testing.
Amadea Tanner
Amadea Tanner is a food journalist for Daily Meal whose distinct focus is food history, culinary nostalgia, and the way everyday dishes reveal broader cultural stories. She covers canned baked beans, boomer-era casseroles, cowboy trail food, and sailors’ rations to show how preservation, technology, labor, and survival shaped familiar staples. Her beat includes retro recipes, mid‑20th‑century home cooking, old-school ice cream flavors, and vintage cookbooks, treating them as records of household budgets and aspirations. She also reports on kitchen culture and domestic design, from breakfast alcoves and pie safes to milk doors and wall phones. Tanner investigates global dish origins and contested national claims in pieces on haggis and pavlova. Beyond Daily Meal, she has worked across food, travel, and sustainability, contributing to outlets including Atlas Obscura, Beau Monde Media, Yahoo, and Tasting Table.
Amanda Garrity
Amanda Garrity stands out for turning food, holidays, and family traditions into practical service stories that help readers plan specific celebrations. She is a lifestyle editor at TODAY.com and has more than seven years of experience as a lifestyle writer and editor, including five years on staff at Good Housekeeping, where she covered home, holidays, food, entertainment, and other lifestyle news. Her work also appears in consumer titles including Prevention, Men’s Health, Cosmopolitan, Redbook, and Best Products. Her beat centers on event-based menus, holiday explainers, and classic TV and film guides, with clear, list-driven reporting that gives readers specific dates, recipes, viewing options, and simple background for family planning.