Jessica Moore
Jessica Moore covers the overlap of food, celebrity culture and consumer products for USA TODAY’s shopping desk, focusing on how personality-driven brands and cookbooks translate into what people buy and cook. She writes in a service-forward style that uses celebrity stories to walk readers through the specifics of recipes, products and kitchen gear, treating fame as a hook rather than the main event.
Celebrity cookbooks and food brands as products
Moore’s food coverage often centers on celebrity-driven projects, especially cookbooks and branded food ventures. In her piece on Kris Jenner’s cookbook, she breaks down the collection as a consumer item, explaining what readers can expect from its recipes, voice and aesthetic and how it fits into Jenner’s broader brand. She treats the book the way a product journalist would treat a gadget, focusing on practical details like the kinds of dishes included and who they suit rather than on gossip. When she writes about celebrity food ventures, she pays attention to how a star’s persona is translated into recipes, ingredient choices and packaging, giving readers a clear sense of whether the story is about serious cooking, lifestyle aspiration or both.
Shopping coverage with a food and kitchen slant
As part of USA TODAY’s shopping team, Moore writes product-driven stories that sit at the intersection of food, home and entertainment. She frequently highlights items that shape how people cook, entertain and stock their kitchens, from cookbooks and pantry staples to cookware and tableware, presenting them with the same deal-minded lens the shopping desk brings to tech or home goods. Her work folds in price, availability and value, but keeps flavor, usability and everyday cooking needs in view, so the food angle stays central even in commerce pieces. The coverage is grounded in concrete examples — specific books, products and collections — rather than abstract trends, making it easy to see how an item might fit into a reader’s own kitchen or hosting routine.
Celebrity lifestyle stories tied to what people buy
Moore often uses celebrity lifestyle moments as a bridge into shopping and food coverage. In a story on Jennifer Garner’s under-$100 overalls, she connects a familiar screen persona with a specific, accessible product that readers can actually purchase, while also touching on Garner’s organic baby food brand Once Upon a Farm as part of the same down-to-earth image. This approach lets her weave together fashion, parenting and food in one narrative, and makes clear how a celebrity’s off-screen choices influence the products readers see in stores and online. Across these stories, she keeps a tight focus on the tangible items — the clothes, the cookbook, the food brand — rather than drifting into pure entertainment news.
Background and approach
Moore works on USA TODAY’s dedicated shopping team, bringing a newsroom commerce lens to food and lifestyle coverage. Before joining the team, she spent several years working in local television news, experience that shows in how she structures stories around clear, quickly graspable takeaways. Her writing favors direct language, explicit product details and concise explanations of why a particular cookbook, food brand or kitchen-related item matters now. That combination makes her coverage a fit for stories where food, celebrity branding and consumer behavior meet, and where the core question is not just who is involved, but what, exactly, they are asking people to bring into their homes and onto their tables.
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.