Rick West
Rick West uses food coverage as a way to tell stories about local life, focusing on how new restaurants, food brands and culinary traditions fit into the fabric of the communities he covers.
Community food openings and the local dining scene
West reports on new food concepts coming into the area, treating openings as community events rather than simple business transactions. In his coverage of a popular ice cream brand expanding from Ohio into the suburbs, he frames the story around what the arrival means for local diners and the surrounding neighborhood, highlighting accessibility, family appeal and the draw of a recognizable brand. In Lake County he has written about Detroit-style pizza as an underappreciated genre, using the opening of Squares Pizza Pub as a hook to explain the style, the menu and the experience diners can expect when the restaurant launches. His food stories typically combine straightforward descriptions of what is being offered with context on location, ownership and how the business adds to the existing dining mix.
Food as part of everyday community coverage
Although he is a staff photographer who covers communities around Kane County daily, he frequently incorporates food, dining and hospitality into a broader community beat.
He has reported on the Gail Borden Library’s work to digitize “The Elgin Dairy Report” from the late 19th and early 20th centuries, treating the archival project as both a history milestone and a window into the region’s agricultural and dairy past. In features that touch on community gatherings and local organizations, food often appears as a practical detail that signals how people come together, whether it is a Salvation Army corps organizing a busy holiday season to provide a merrier Christmas for hundreds of residents or a library exhibit opening that draws families into a shared space.
The through-line is that food is rarely isolated from its setting; he uses it to show how institutions, events and people intersect.
Human-interest features with lifestyle and culture threads
West’s food coverage sits alongside a steady stream of human-interest stories that give a fuller picture of the communities he documents. He has profiled a former firefighter who turned a bedtime story about backyard chickens into a children’s book, focusing on the personal path from public service to creative work and the way the book is starting to reach readers through local and online sales. He has written about the Gail Borden Library’s 150th birthday, explaining how the institution has evolved and what its anniversary means for residents who use it as a daily resource.
His stories about museum talks, public art unveilings and new gathering spaces show a consistent interest in how local culture is made and experienced, whether through books, exhibitions or shared spaces that often include food and drink.
Visual storytelling and long tenure on the community beat
West’s food and feature reporting is grounded in his primary role as a photographer, a position he has held at the Daily Herald since 2000. Many of his pieces are built around strong visual elements, from photo galleries of the outlet’s best images of the year to coverage that uses photographs to anchor short, direct narratives about events and people. He regularly documents fire departments, civic ceremonies and neighborhood happenings, including stories such as a North Aurora fire engine being donated to a community college program, where the visual of the apparatus is central to the narrative.
This long-running visual presence shapes his written work on food and lifestyle: openings, exhibits and books are presented as things readers can picture themselves attending, eating or using, with clear, uncluttered prose that mirrors the way he composes images.
4 more food journalists.
Aaron Guerrero
Aaron Guerrero is head of the digital department at Miami’s Community Newspapers, where he pairs restaurant coverage with community-facing content. He focuses on how Miami-area restaurants evolve, celebrate, and experiment through new concepts, menus, and neighborhood-focused dining experiences. He reports on restaurant openings, such as an Italian food hall at Plaza Coral Gables, new executive lunch menus, and wood-fired Latin steakhouse brunches, explaining what sets each venue apart. He also covers awards, like a Wine Spectator honor for an Italian chophouse, and events that turn dining rooms into social hubs. His bylines extend to features on sports-themed gatherings, civic renamings, local visits to restaurant programs, sponsored community pieces, and official notices. His work is straightforward and descriptive, helping readers and local businesses connect around specific openings, promotions, and dining experiences.
Aarron Fleming
Aarron Fleming reports on how courts, jails and public safety systems work over time. He is a reporter at The Daily Memphian covering public safety, the local court system, suburban news and business developments in North Mississippi. His work follows trials, sentencing, appeals, plea deals and judicial decisions, including major cases tied to Tyre Nichols and rapper Young Dolph. He also covers jail conditions, inmate deaths, crime data, prosecution units, trafficking, shootings and public-order incidents. His suburban reporting examines cannabis businesses, restaurant openings and how commercial growth affects communities such as Olive Branch. Fleming previously covered education in the same newsroom. He uses clear, unadorned prose to explain legal steps, deadlines, institutional problems and the political, commercial and community effects of public-safety decisions.
Alana Al-Hatlani
Alana Al-Hatlani is a food writer and editor who treats recipes, restaurants, and food features as ways to explore culture, community, and the business of eating. She works on the food team at Southern Living, overseeing and contributing to print recipes and reported features. Her pastry-focused, restaurant-tested perspective comes from time in restaurant and bakery kitchens. She helps plan and write monthly food packages, including “The South’s Most Treasured Desserts,” and wrote “8 Summer Recipes Our Editors Make Every Year.” She also writes recipe tips, ingredient explainers, restaurant guides, and reported stories about workers, owners, and communities. Her subjects include regional specialties, dining scenes, kitchen basics, and food industries. Her work has appeared with OpenTable and Yahoo. She reports on the ground, explains techniques clearly, and connects specific dishes and places to larger stories about food and livelihood.
Alana Edgin
Alana Edgin is a business reporter whose strongest focus is food, restaurants and consumer-facing businesses. She works at the Lubbock Avalanche-Journal and has also had work syndicated across AOL and Yahoo News. She covers new openings, closings, expansions and franchise growth, along with retail, health, services, corporate news, data incidents, business support programs and sponsorships. Her reporting includes detailed roundups of new restaurants and businesses, coverage of El Pollo Loco’s opening, and stories on burger trucks, dessert shops, Vietnamese sandwich restaurants and gourmet markets. She also contributes to food and drink reviews, including fall coffee and jerky comparisons. Edgin reports with practical “what, when, where” details, structured comparisons and clear explanations of how offers, partnerships and business changes affect consumers and the local economy.