Name: Mindy Fox
Job: Cookbook Author, Journalist, Editor and Food Stylist
Culinary Training: Self-Taught
Several years ago Mindy Fox, a Salamander Restaurant-era friend who still cooks professionally, albeit as a cookbook writer, editor and food stylist, called me with a dilemma. After a successful dinner party, one of her guests, an aspiring private chef and caterer, had emailed Mindy a link to her website. Mindy was surprised to discover that her dinner party menu had somehow found its way onto the guest's website as an 'original' menu. Feeling plagiarized, Mindy wanted to know what I thought she should do. I could only register my disbelief. With little recourse for dinner party plagiarism, Mindy opted to strike the offending guest from her invite list. A worse punishment is unimaginable; Mindy Fox really knows how to throw a dinner party.
I took a picture of Mindy's refrigerator during a recent visit to Mindy's home:
Mindy does the majority of her shopping at the Farmers Market in Union Square. For Mindy, this isn't just a trend or fad; as long as I have known her, this is how she approaches food - sustainably and with respect.
Mindy's approach to food and cooking was developed over her professional career. When I met Mindy in 1996, she had already been cooking for several years. Mindy's life in food began by chance. A recent college graduate unsure about her career path in a struggling recessionary economy, she took a job as a server at the Casablanca restaurant in Cambridge, MA. She spent long hours in the kitchen walk-in, talking with the chef about food and learning about the ingredients. After many months, she decided that she wanted to be in the kitchen, not just serve food. The chef advised her to find work in a place that would provide broad training and help develop her skills. She found work at a busy, high-end catering company and stayed for two years.
Yearning for greater challenges, she took a job as a line cook at Salamander and worked her way through every hot station in the restaurant. After 2 years there, she was ready for more responsibility and left to take a sous chef position at a boutique catering company. Over the next several years, she held catering jobs, private chef positions and freelance chef positions. While she loved working with food, adored the adrenaline rush, the choreography and craft of cooking, and the order and organization around preparing and serving food, there was something missing.
Contemplating a career change, she talked with a friend who told her to look around her apartment and tell him what she saw. Copies of Saveur Magazine were strewn about the house. "Then go get a job at Saveur," he advised. She laughed. There was no way she could get a job there, she thought. All the same, she decided to go for it. It was a long shot but it was worth trying.
An informational interview and a formal interview later, Mindy packed up her apartment and moved to New York for an unpaid 6 week intership in the editorial department at Saveur. Two weeks later, a position opened up and Mindy was hired as an assistant editor - her dream job. Beside exposure to some of the best food writers and editors in the industry, Mindy connected with people and organizations deeply involved with the sustainability movement - in particular, Earth Pledge, which supports sustainable architecture and design and sustainable agriculture and cuisine. Two years later, Mindy left Saveur and joined Earth Pledge as communications director and head of the sustainable cuisine program.
Over the next three years, Mindy built their Farm-to-Table sustainable resource, which provides a single source to locate farmers, vintners, artisan food producers in the US, which will be expanding beyond the original New York and New Jersey area to include 25 metropolitan areas thanks in part to a grant from Food & Wine magazine. Mindy still is involved with the foundation as a member of the Farm-to-Table board of advisors.
Perhaps the most serendipitous work Mindy did while at Earth Pledge was to interview Samuel "Sambo" Mockbee, MacArthur fellow and the founder of the Rural Studio. The interview was included in the Sustainable Architecture White Papers, published by Chelsea Green in 2001. Although I'm not sure of exact details, I know Mindy became close to Sambo and his family. Tragically, Sambo passed away less than a year after the white papers were published. Mindy, devastated by the loss of her friend, spoke at his memorial, where she made the acquaintance of one of Sambo's proteges, Steve Hoffman. She knew within a month that he was 'the one'. They were married in 2003.
Mindy now edits, writes, develops recipes, and does food styling as a freelancer for magazines, including Food & Wine and Everyday with Rachael Ray. She has ghostwritten 3 well-known cookbooks and has edited others. She has developed recipes for books by Chris Carmichael, Lance Armstrong's personal trainer. Her current project, a collaboration with Chef Sara Jenkins, daughter of Nancy Harmon Jenkins, will be the first to give her marquee credit as a co-author. The Elements of Flavor will be published by Houghton Mifflin in 2008. She is also working on a book with Karen DeMasco, pastry chef at Craft in New York City.
Mindy's husband Steve, meanwhile, has been growing his architecture practice in New York City. He renovated my mom's kitchen and even managed to use some sustainable materials (despite her lack of interest in saving the world).
Mom has become friendly with Mindy and Steve and so when we recently were visting New York, they invited us over for dinner.
Here are some images from that night.
The porgy and mackerel she made was fantastic - so simple, prepared with fennel greens parsley, lemon and garlic and salt and pepper. She served a gorgeous salad and a farro and fennel heart side.
Dessert was pecorino and pears with local honey.
