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MOHAI: Edible City

Curator of the Museum of History and Industry's "Edible City," a museum exhibit on Seattle and food, on public display from November 19, 2016 – September 10, 2017.

James Beard Awards

James Beard Award Finalist 2019: Personal Essay, Short Form.  James Beard Award, 2009: Newspaper Feature Writing with Recipes, for this article about the Mangalitsa pig: "Super-succulent imports are everything U.S. pork isn't". James Beard Award, 2007: Best Newspaper or Magazine Restaurant Review or Critique, for the following three reviews: "Tiny Sitka and Spruce makes a big splash."  "Heads up on lovely Veil: Not one of the best yet." "We went trolling for the city's best crab cakes."

Equal justice issues

I specialize in the story behind the story. Why did a killer stop the jury from hearing evidence that could have saved his own life, and should the system have allowed him that choice? Why are school discipline rates so different by race? 

KUOW Radio

Devouring Seattle

My previous blog as the food writer at the Seattle Post-Intelligencer; this became one of the newspaper's most popular blogs.  

Greenbrier Symposium Scholarship

Greenbrier Symposium for Professional Food Writers 2009 scholarship winner:   Edible Communities Scholarship This $2,000 scholarship will be awarded to a food writer of demonstrated ability whose work pertains to honoring and preserving authentic regional foodways and embodies the Edible Communities mission of "Celebrating the Abundance of Local Foods, Season by Season." Essays and narrative non-fiction with a strong personal voice are encouraged.

Education Reporting Project

An award winning two month project in 2002 funded by an Education Writers Association research fellowship.  This in-depth project examined why black students were disclipined at higher rates than other students in the Seattle school district. Through statistical analysis it was shown that this disparity was not due to the social factors usually used to explain the discipline gap, but was likely due to race itself.  This project was done while covering education for the Seattle Post-Intelligencer.   The main story is at the link above, and the supporting articles are archived.   

Work experience

Major Media

 

  • Editor of the Sound Consumer, the newspaper on sustainable food and agriculture published by PCC Community Markets, the nation's largest food co-op. I am responsible for planning, editing, and managing a diverse group of freelancers, as well as writing print and digital copy aimed at the co-op's 90,000+ members.
  • Regular contributor to The Seattle Times, with other recent newspaper work including food and travel pieces in The Washington Post and book reviews in The Christian Science Monitor.
  • Developed and wrote a weekly e-mail newsletter for Seattle's Child magazine focused on families and food.
  • Planned, developed, and was the chief food writer and restaurant critic at The Seattle Post-Intelligencer. Established “Devouring Seattle,” one of the newspaper’s best-read blogs. In earlier years, planned and wrote coverage of education, features, and city reporting for The Seattle Post-Intelligencer, ranging from deadline beat reporting to lengthy projects on the death penalty and on racial disparities in school discipline. I have a long history of including diverse and underrepresented voices in my topics and reporting -- I always look for who is in the room, and who is missing.

Award-Winning Cookbooks

  • Editorial contributor to "Modernist Cuisine," the 2,400-page opus that has been called the most astonishing cookbook of our time. Writer/editor on the 2017 follow-up cookbook set "Modernist Bread: The Art And Science."
  • Ghostwriter for various cookbooks, providing editorial material, essays, and headnotes, as well as reworking recipes to match the publisher's style guidelines.
  • Editorial contributor to the 2013 Zagat Seattle guide and to the 2013 Fodor's guidebooks to Seattle and the Pacific Northwest.

Magazines and Multimedia

  • Curator for "Edible City," a comprehensive 5,000-square-foot exhibit on Seattle and food at the Museum of History and Industry (2014-2017). I also developed and wrote the book accompanying the exhibit.
  • Contributor to many online and print news sites and magazines, with recent work including Sunset magazine, Allrecipes.com, and Anthony Bourdain's "Parts Unknown." My work includes reporting on food, books, health, parenting, and other topics of general interest.
  • Local editor for a Google project involving food and travel writing (2013-2015).
  • Social media influencer @rebekahdenn. Established the "EatAllAboutIt" YouTube video channel, attracting nearly 4 million hits on the site's top video.  

National Awards

  • James Beard Award: Newspaper Feature Writing with Recipes.
  • James Beard Award: Best Newspaper or Magazine Restaurant Review or Critique.
  • James Beard Finalist: Personal Essay, Short Form.
  • Association of Food Journalists: First and second place awards for Best Food Coverage on the Internet, First place award for Feature Writing About Food.
  • Greenbrier Symposium for Professional Food Writers "Edible Communities Scholarship" winner.
  • James Aronson Award for Social Justice.
  • Emery Brownell Award for Excellence in Reporting on Equal Justice Issues, awarded by the National Legal Aid & Defender Association.
  • Thurgood Marshall Journalism Award from the Death Penalty Information Center.
  • Education Writers Association research fellowship and national award for investigative reporting.

Speaking Experience (selected)

  • Panel moderator at the Smithsonian Food History Weekend at the National Museum of American History.
  • Author interviews including an on-stage "Evening With Yotam Ottolenghi and Helen Goh" at the 520-seat SIFF Cinema Egyptian, Seattle.
  • Panel moderator at MOHAI's "Eating Up Seattle: How A City Found Its Own Cuisine," Seattle.  
  • Panel moderator at Association of Food Journalists annual conference, Seattle.
  • Panel moderator at International Association of Culinary Professionals conference, Chicago.
  • Panel moderator at the "Is Sustainable Attainable" Greenpeace conference, San Francisco.
  • Guest appearances on KUOW radio on the locally produced NPR programs "KUOW Presents" and "Sound Focus" with Senior Host Megan Sukys.

Interests

  • Obsessive checking of Twitter and Instagram feeds.
  • Backpacking -- I once spent six weeks traveling the John Muir Trail with my husband.
  • I am an avid reader, with a special interest in children's books, cookbooks, graphic novels, and general non-fiction. I obtained advance copies of the Harry Potter books, despite a well-publicized attempt to keep the books under lock and key, in order to publish reviews on the appropriate release dates. 
  • I once jumped out of an airplane at 12,000 feet, but did have a parachute.

Education

References

  • David McCumber, Managing Editor, Seattle Post-Intelligencer.

February 28, 2009

To Whom It May Concern,

This is to recommend P-I Food Editor (and writer!) Rebekah Denn.

Rebekah is an absolutely fabulous food writer -- I believe her to be one of the very best in the country. First and foremost, she's a great journalist.

Before following her passion for food, she had great success as a news reporter.  She started her nearly 11 years at the P-I on the Metro staff, where she covered education brilliantly, carving out time and energy to do significant enterprise stories even as she juggled the daily demands of editors and school board meetings.

Rebekah produced a memorable, groundbreaking series of stories on the racial disparities in disciplinary procedures in the Seattle schools that, five years later, remains one of the richest, most thoughtful enterprise reporting packages the P-I has produced.

Her work on food has been equally spectacular.  She has a large and devoted following within the P-I's readership -- as significant a following as anyone has at the paper.  She has adapted very well to the demands of digital reporting, and as food editor she has helped to plan all kinds of food content, including the popular daily recipes on the P-I's Going Out/Staying In page.

I would unhesitatingly recommend Rebekah for any writing or food-related job in which she might be interested.  She has my respect and gratitude for a job well done, and I'd love to work with her again someday.

Sincerely,

David McCumber

  • Colin Powers, Life and Arts Editor, Seattle Post-Intelligencer.

What a writer! What a passion for food! And, with the dying print product, she has thoroughly embraced the Web. Her P-I and personal blogs show that she’s not solely writing for an audience; she’s leading a conversation among food lovers. Her copy is sparkling, her attitude genial and collaborative. What I don’t attest to, the plethora of awards surely do. (March 25, 2009).

  • Contact information or further references available on request.