About
- The partially-smushed face of your trusted blogger in 2014. Photograph: Max Falkowitz
Who am I?
I'm Robyn Lee, the undoubtedly mentally-sound person in the photo above. I started this blog in 2004 as a clueless 19-year-old who had just moved from her home state of New Jersey to New York City, ostensibly to get a degree in Food Studies, in reality to eat a lot. I ripped off my blog's name from one of my favorite books, The Man Who Ate Everything by Jeffrey Steingarten, because nothing says "honoring one of your favorite books" like besmirching the book's name through a stream of barely comprehensible, unedited food-related brain farts that nobody asked for.
In 2007, after earning an oversized piece of paper that said, "You officially know stuff about food," I started working as an editorial assistant at Serious Eats, where I immediately found out I knew next-to-nothing about food. Seven-ish years of working at Serious Eats later, I emerged with a greater understanding of food culture, the business of running a start-up food website, the responsibilities of a photo and copy editor, and, most importantly, how to satisfactorily animate a never-ending squishing S'mOreos.
After leaving Serious Eats in 2014, I moved to Taipei to learn Mandarin, a task that required dumping all my previous knowledge to make room for the thousands of characters that would haunt my life for the next ten months.
In 2015, I headed back to the US to get married to Kåre, my long-distance boyfriend of five years and my long-distance friend of nine years. A few months later I moved to Norway so we could finally live in the same country. Since then, I've been living every regressing 30-something-year-old's dream of being an unemployed bum who spends most of her time learning two necessities of living in Norway: how to speak Norwegian and how to make pizza that doesn't suck.
Camera info
Here's a timeline of the cameras I've used since I started this blog:
- August 2015: Sony RX100 IV (in addition to the Canon 7D)
- May 2010: Canon 7D with a Sigma 18-50mm F2.8 EX DC macro lens
- Aug 2007 - May 2010: Canon 20D
- June 2006 - Aug 2007: Canon Rebel XT
- Before June 2006: Canon SD 450
I edit all my photos in Photoshop and upload nearly all of them to my Flickr page.
Some general website info
All photos and illustrations are done by me unless otherwise noted. I edit my photos using Photoshop. I also draw my illustrations using Photoshop, more importantly with the magic-imbuing powers of my Intuos Pro tablet and brushes from kylebrush.com.
This website runs on Movable Type. I use Brackets to write the code.
How to contact me
My email address is roboppy@gmail.com. For the most part, email is the best way to contact me, but I can be slow at replying. Don't be shy—please feel free to poke me more than once if you don't hear from me in a timely manner. I love hearing from readers! In the great words of the best computer animated dog in the universe, I have just met you, and I love you! Are you backing away slowly now? That's cool, I get it.
If you're from a PR firm and want to contact me about something you're promoting, you probably shouldn't. I don't write solicited reviews. I don't care about new cookbooks or cooking gadgets. I'm 99% sure I can't go to whatever event your promoting and even if I could, I wouldn't be interested.
If you want to contact me about licensing my photos, please be clear about how you want to use the photos and what your photo rates are.
You can also find me on Flickr, Instagram, Twitter, and Facebook.
Meager accolades and press
- August 2016: Nominated for "Best Humor Blog" in 2016's Saveur Blog Awards
- December 2013: Mentioned in L Magazine's list of "30 Under 30: The Young Brooklynites We Envy Most" [photo]
- May 2011: Winner of "Best Restaurant/Dining Coverage" award in 2011's Saveur Blog Awards
- November 2008: Recommended in Australian magazine Home Beautiful alongside Grab Your Fork and Stone Soup [photo]
- September 28, 2008: Recommended in South China Morning Post by their food and wine editor, Susan Jung [photo]
- February 19, 2008: Recommended in The Sacramento Bee's "To-Do List"
- August 2006: Recommended in Singaporean magazine Cleo alongside Chez Pim and Delicious Days [photo]