Did yesterday’s traffic and icy roads send you into a fender bender? @JavaTrain wants to make you feel better with a free beverage, @LocalDlish reschedules their new gluten-free bread delivery,@MSPmagEats recommends Lindey’s Prime for steak and hashbrowns, @CameoApples does the math on their apple yield per acre, and butter gains a new feline audience — the NY Post suggests feeding cats a pat of @Organic_Valley butter to prevent hairballs.
The Heavy Table is a Twin Cities-based magazine passionately telling the stories of food and drink — from roots to table — in the Upper Midwest.
We are interested in small, neighborhood restaurants; ethnic eateries with a story to tell; great home cooking; Upper Midwestern culinary traditions; stuff that’s hilarious; recipes that work; recipes that fail spectacularly; current events; local food; heirloom food; and people at all levels of the food creation, preparation, distribution and consumption chain.
The Heavy Table is for readers who enjoy good food. That might mean a $75 tab at La Belle Vie or a $5 porketta sandwich bought on the road to Hibbing. It might be a dandelion salad or a venison stew. It might be a new variety of Bisquick pancakes.
We read Saveur, and MFK Fisher, and The Art of Eating, and Brillat-Savarin. We also watch Andrew Zimmern and Anthony Bourdain and keep tabs on the local food blogs. We write to be understood, to be accurate, and to entertain.
The Heavy Table is a positive voice with integrity. We will call people out on lousy value and bad hospitality. But we prefer to celebrate the delicious, the creative, the honest, and the heartwarming.
We look forward to serving you.
Staff
Editor
James Norton |
James Norton is the co-author of an upcoming book about Wisconsin’s master cheesemakers, a weekly columnist for CHOW.com, and a locally acclaimed baker of scratch-made biscuits for his wife on most Tuesday mornings. Norton has written about food for Salon, Saveur.com, Minnesota Monthly, City Pages (as a weekly restaurant reviewer) and Metroblogging Minneapolis.
Writer / Photographer
Katie Cannon |
Whether it’s the perfect fish taco, a crumbly buttery scone or a thick juicy steak, Katie enjoys the art of making and eating good food. She values sharing a good meal with friends and family and loves to entertain as a means of doing so. A human resources professional for many years, she recently made a career change to pursue photography professionally. She currently is busy enjoying food writing and photography for her personal blog Camacho Watcho and for Twin Cities Metromix (as a restaurant reviewer and events photographer) and is excited to contribute as both a writer and photographer for the Heavy Table.
Contributing Writers
Eric Faust |
Claiming to be the caffeinated brother of Bacchus, Eric has sip and slurped all over the world in the constant quest for the finest cup of coffee. Between working as a technical writer during the day and coffee roaster at night, Eric can be found keeping a bar stool warm while sipping a micro brew and reading his beloved Wine Bible. He has written for The Rake, Fresh Cup and Roast Magazine. Eric lives and breathes beverages, while trying his best not to aspirate. As long as he doesn’t spill his espresso on his keyboard much will flow from his finger tips to the pages of The Heavy Table.
Jill Lewis |
The great-granddaughter of an Eastern European Jewish baker, Jill Lewis cannot escape her genetic predisposition to carbs. Her love of baked goods, wine, cheese and chocolate may not come in handy for her day job as a Twin Cities PR professional, but it proves infinitely helpful for her gigs as a contributing writer for The Heavy Table and the co-author of the Cheese and Champagne blog. A former resident of Illinois, Texas, Wisconsin and suburban Washington, D.C., Jill now lives with her husband, toddler son and cat in St. Louis Park.
Susan Pagani |
Susan Pagani has lived in Michigan, Wisconsin, Oregon, Washington, and Texas, and is a native of California. But, for all that moving, she believes she was born to live alongside the Mississippi — and to fly fish. Previously, she was Food Editor at the San Antonio Current, an alt-weekly in Texas, and wrote about everything from familial fig trees and DIY fortune cookies to the Texas legislature and reproductive rights. She is currently working as a copywriter and editor in East St. Paul. She lives in Longfellow with her husband and their nutty dog, and eats as much toast as she possibly can every day.
Alyssa Vance |
Alyssa is the offspring of an eccentric, food-obsessed family. An airline kid who traveled the globe and developed a taste for escargot and foie gras as a child, she now lives in the Summit Hill neighborhood of Saint Paul with her husband, two English Pointers and black cat. As a yoga teacher, she is regretfully apprehensive to succumb to the yogic practice of vegetarianism and thus, does not discriminate against any food, especially bacon. She believes that everyone is a budding chef waiting to be found, and should enter their kitchen without fear. Oh, and when in doubt, should add butter.
Lori Writer |
A food fanatic since her first visit to San Francisco’s Chinatown in the fourth grade, Lori Writer can’t pass a Chinese bakery without buying an egg tart, a taqueria without investigating the carnitas, or a Vietnamese restaurant without indulging in some sweet, iced coffee. Her nightstand is stacked with cookbooks and her glove-box is stuffed with take-out menus. Writer has been published in the San Francisco Chronicle and has already thrown out her first novel, in keeping with the “the first is always the worst” method of pancake-making.
Contributing Photographer
Becca Dilley |
Becca Dilley is the co-author of an upcoming book about Wisconsin’s master cheesemakers, a professional photographer, and a locally acclaimed enthusiast of scratch-made biscuits made by her husband on most Tuesday mornings. She plans to enter both her blackberry-blueberry-ginger jam and her Grandma Dilley’s pickled watermelon rinds in the Minnesota State Fair this year.
Producer
Aaron Landry |
Aaron is an online media hound, media consultant and prolific blogger. He loves pizza, cheeses and almost anything that can be drunk. He works with numerous organizations, non-profits, political groups and large firms on engaging audiences online. On the side, Aaron is an amateur photographer, private pilot and pianist. Born and raised outside of Stillwater, MN, Aaron lives with his cat Nadia in the Longfellow neighborhood of Minneapolis. His personal blog is at s4xton.com.
Copy Editor
Emily Nystrom |
Emily Nystrom experiments with new recipes each week and keeps a mile-long list of restaurants to visit. By day, she is the senior editor for a business-to-business pharmaceutical publication. Ever dedicated to Minnesota, Emily was raised in Minnetonka, attended Carleton in Northfield, and now lives in the Tangletown neighborhood of Minneapolis. She is always impressed by fresh custard-filled doughnuts, perfectly spiced Indian curries, and restaurants that offer more than one vegetarian dish.
Assistant Editor
Interns
Calendar Intern: Soleil Ho
Copy Desk Intern: Elizabeth Cavert Mead Scheibel
Projects Intern: Ashley Laflin
Research Intern: Kelly Carlin
About Our Star System
Full-length reviews on The Heavy Table are accompanied by a star rating from 0 to 4 stars. A 1-star review isn’t negative; it’s mixed. Even a 1/2 star restaurant will have one or two positive points worth mentioning.
We are fully aware that it’s difficult, if not insulting, to attempt to boil a restaurant down to a simple star rating, just as it’s insanely reductive to boil a film down to a thumb jammed up or down. That said, we use these ratings as a condensed thumbnail of the review, as a jumping-off point for reader discussion, and as a way to clarify our reviewers’ thoughts and remind them that, ultimately, they must take a firm stand when they write.
(Poor)
(Flawed)
(Notable)
(Notable)
(Good)
(Good)
(Excellent)
(Excellent)
(Superb)
Our Ethics Policy
Restaurant reviews are sacred. If we’re handing out stars or even publishing a brief listing, we are not being compensated in cash or trade by the establishment. The evaluation will be done with magazine funds and on an anonymous basis.
Any sponsored content will be clearly marked as such. Sponsored content will not include reviews, short or long.
As with all content on the site, The Heavy Table has final say on all wording in sponsored content and will ensure that all claims or statements made are either colorful and subjective or verifiable as factual.
Sponsored information and contests on third-party services (deals or promotions on Flickr or Twitter, for example) will always be clearly marked as sponsored.
The Heavy Table accepts product samples, books, and event tickets for review consideration. Anything valued over $100 US (including but not limited to trips, appliances, fancy liquor, etc.) will be disclosed explicitly in any coverage on the site.
If a writer or a member of his or her immediate family has a direct financial relationship with a subject of an article, he or she will not write about that subject without a full disclosure of the relationship.
Our Values
- Appreciation of the seasonal, the local, and the truly creative
- Personalized partnerships with advertisers and sponsors
- Exploration of context
- Aesthetic grace
- Unflinching criticism tempered by sympathy for those who dare to attempt something difficult
- Accuracy
- Truly original content
- Nimble use of technology to best convey good information to readers
- Stories featuring real people
Contact
EDITORIAL | James Norton | 612.242.7787 |
SPONSORSHIP | Aaron Landry | 612.747.2217 |
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