Letter from the Dining Guide Editor

I think a lot about food.

Not just about eating food—though admittedly that is a big part of it—but about our relationship to food, the hidden qualities behind an ingredient, the memories inextricably linked to a certain meal.

I love a good dinner out with friends, but some of my fondest memories are also tethered to 2 a.m. pizza runs in sweatpants with my best friends. Sophomore year, my roommate and I soothed any bad week with a nacho platter at El Rey. Food can be comfort, it can be excitement, it can even be a form of love—perhaps one of the purest forms. Maybe your pants won’t zip after trying all the baked goods at Lipkin’s Bakery, but we can all appreciate a good labor of love, can’t we? 

This semester’s dining guide is an ode to the multifaceted nature of food. Inside you’ll find personal essays about fast food, restaurant review rendezvous, an interview with a food critic, and a few surprises littered throughout. We’ve mixed up the new and the old in order to bring you a smorgasbord of topics, a curated feast of the possibilities that food journalism offers. 

A US study concluded that the average joe spends an astounding 32,098 hours eating and drinking in his or her lifetime. Time is precious—how are you eating yours?

Time to chow down,

Sabrina Qiao (“ciao”)