Sam Sifton
Sam Sifton is a senior editor and writer at The New York Times whose work uses food, home cooking and daily routines as a way into culture and the news. He is the founding editor of NYT Cooking and the host of The Morning newsletter, where he writes service‑minded essays like “Behind the Wheel” that frame the day’s stories for general readers. His coverage is distinguished by a blend of practical cooking guidance, an emphasis on gatherings and everyday rituals, and a conversational voice that connects recipes and lifestyle choices to the wider news agenda.
NYT Cooking and home recipes
Sifton built NYT Cooking as an “award‑winning digital cookbook and cooking school,” turning a recipe archive into a service platform aimed at home cooks of all levels. He has written hundreds of recipes there, ranging from reverse‑seared rib‑eye steak to Bulgogi sliders with scallion salsa, serious potato skins, pizza margherita, bulgogi‑style tofu and fluke au gratin. The mix of classic American comfort food, Sunday‑supper dishes and globally influenced flavors shows a consistent interest in meals that feel familiar but are pushed toward deeper flavor and better technique.
Alongside the recipe work, Sifton wrote the Cooking newsletter for more than a decade, using it to suggest what to cook in a given week and to link those choices to seasons, holidays and family routines. His cookbooks, including “Thanksgiving: How to Cook It Well,” “See You on Sunday: A Cookbook for Family and Friends” and “New York Times Cooking No‑Recipe Recipes,” extend that focus into longer form, with special attention to holiday meals, Sunday suppers and improvisational cooking without strict recipes. Across these formats he treats home cooking as both a practical task and a social glue, writing in direct, instructional prose that keeps the emphasis on what readers can realistically make.
The Morning newsletter and service‑first news
In his current role, Sifton hosts The Morning newsletter, a daily letter about the news that arrives in inboxes at 7 a.m. Eastern time. The newsletter’s recent pieces include “The Big Show,” on the United Nations General Assembly, and “Protein in Every Food,” which examines how food companies market protein and how consumers respond. Other installments introduce readers to librarians across the country or highlight cultural institutions like the Kennedy Center, showing a regular interest in the people and places that shape everyday civic and cultural life.
Compared with a straight news reporter, Sifton’s Morning work is distinguished by its blend of explanation, curation and lifestyle framing: he summarizes major stories, points to what matters next and often connects those developments to the rhythms of work, eating and leisure. The tone is that of a letter rather than a bulletin, and he uses recurring examples from food, culture and domestic routines to make complex subjects more graspable.
Pieces like “Behind the Wheel” sit in that pattern, treating a familiar aspect of daily life as a lens for understanding larger themes, rather than as an isolated feature.
Restaurant criticism and food essays
Before his current editorial roles, Sifton served as the food editor, chief restaurant critic and a magazine columnist at the paper, giving him long experience writing evaluative and narrative pieces about dining. In “My Life in Food,” an essay from his restaurant‑critic tenure, he lays out a week of eating and exercising, complete with meal counts and calorie totals, to show the physical demands of that job.
The piece blends diary‑style reporting with quantified detail, revealing an interest in the realities behind glamorous dining and in the discipline needed to sustain that work.
Earlier in his career he wrote about media, food and the hidden corners of downtown Manhattan, and later oversaw coverage that ranged from restaurants and Broadway premieres to natural disasters and statehouse politics. That background gives his food writing a broader cultural and news sensibility than a critic focused solely on taste: restaurants are treated as part of a city’s ecosystem, and meals become occasions to talk about community, labor and place.
Even when he shifts format - from critic’s notebook to home‑cooking recipe or newsletter column - the attention to context and lived experience stays consistent.
Culture and lifestyle leadership
On the masthead, Sifton has been responsible for culture and lifestyle coverage, overseeing departments that handle food, arts and other features. A company announcement described his “Food empire” as an example of what a modern features desk can look like, noting its mix of recipes, newsletters, videos, restaurant reviews and news. His work on NYT Cooking was cited as one of the organization’s most successful standalone businesses, underlining his interest in building editorial products that combine service journalism with business sustainability.
This leadership role shapes his byline: Sifton writes from the vantage point of someone who decides how culture and lifestyle coverage should feel at the paper, not just what an individual story should say. For story selection, that tends to mean an emphasis on pieces that help readers understand how they live now - how they cook, eat, attend events, travel and follow the news - rather than on narrow industry coverage. When his name is on a food or lifestyle story, it typically signals a focus on everyday practice and on the connections between personal routines and the wider world.
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.