On Change

And why we love/hate it.

Welcome to the Tuesday post for all subscribers. As always and ever, thank you so much for being here. If you’d like to learn more about me and what I do, you can check out my website.

Welcome to a post that has been a long time coming. When I started this newsletter about a year ago, it was because I missed the “good old days” of blogging. I love writing, and I love having an engaged audience, no matter how small, to write to. Despite the fact that I have made a career in photography, writing is, and always has been, my preferred medium.

When I made the decision to stop blogging about recipes and food, it was because taking such detailed notes on recipes, testing them time and time again, and having to translate the way I cooked into detailed recipes was draining all of the joy from cooking. It was because the demands of SEO and algorithms were squeezing every ounce of personality from my writing and making me sound like everyone else. I had fallen out of love with it, and I needed to fall back into love with food and writing on my own terms. Writing recipes on Substack has none of those pitfalls, and this newsletter has reminded me why I loved blogging in the first place.

Telling stories about food and sharing recipes that mean something to me are my favorite ways to take up space on the internet. Recipe writing, though, takes time, and developing a recipe that works is no small feat. I want to continue doing that, but I need to set a pace for myself that feels sustainable so that I can keep this space protected from burnout.

So, we’re changing things up!

Here’s what’s changing:

Recipes are getting less frequent

Instead of the four recipes per month that you’ve been getting over the last year, only two recipes a month will go out to paid subscribers. These recipes will still go out on Fridays, and will still be accessible only to paid subscribers.

Fewer Tuesday posts and more variations for Friday posts

I love the Tuesday posts—they’re free-form and wide-ranging and sporadically composed. I don’t want them to go away, so I’ll be shifting two of these posts a month to the Friday subscriber-only slot. These posts (now called the UnRecipes) will continue to feature interviews, photo essays, book reviews, and all other manner of things.

Here’s what I want you to know:

If you are an unpaid subscriber, you will receive two UnRecipe posts a month from me starting in August. You’ll continue to receive previews of the subscriber-only content, and I’ll continue to be jazzed out of my mind that you’re here and reading what I have to say.

If you’re a paid subscriber, you’ll be receiving those two UnRecipe posts plus two additional UnRecipes and two Recipes a month. If you feel like that’s not enough for you to want to renew your subscription, this is me telling you that that is 100% okay. I hope you’ll find another newsletter to invest in—there are tons of good ones here on Substack (more on that next month!).

Lastly, as a thank you to everyone on this list, Friday’s recipe will be free to all of you. It’s a good one: for my homemade pizza dough.