Trends and decidedly subjective takes on food and news, recommendations for media consumption, and other (loosely) related topics, in your inbox… occasionally.
If you’re new here, welcome. I’m Janice. I’ve been a food and travel writer for almost two decades, starting with a blog in my teens (which makes me a dinosaur in Internet years), hence the childish handle that I still use today, @e_ting. For the better part of my career, I was based in Hong Kong, and I’ve written for publications such as Monocle, The New York Times and Wall Street Journal.
I’m what people call a “third culture kid”, growing up between Melbourne and Hong Kong, and till this day, most of my interests stem from having lived in these two places. The support and respect for nature and agriculture in Australia (though hanging on by a thread these days) inspired me, in 2012, to start a farmers’ market in Hong Kong, a place where that sentiment is relatively rare. That launched me into production work that spans anything from exhibitions to film, but the common denominator has always been food.
This newsletter was started mostly out of frustration with what I read in most mainstream English-language food media – be it the dominance of US publications (and their associated trends and values), or speed and ease with which writers and publications pick a side of just about any argument. There’s a non-sensical (to me) system and style of how things are published, and the lack of a wider understanding of the world results in work that limits the minds of readers. That sounds pretentious – what I mean is, I don’t write from a US-centric POV, I prefer to get as close to sources/documents as possible, I might not actually come to a conclusion if the evidence is not conclusive, and I do write a lot out of frustration (ie. I rant). If you think that sounds like what you want, do sign up. If not, then don’t. If I never see you again, please take this with you: always find original sources before you decide on an opinion, and be prepared to update them.
