The Life-Changing Magic of Reply-All

Dear Pros,

You've got Kat this week. Anyone at Food & Wine can attest to my — we'll call it — "enthusiasm" about the history of this brand. As in I buy old copies of the magazine on eBay, catalog the indexes of issues from 1978 onward in a spreadsheet when I can't sleep, and create crosswords and quizzes from the archives.

Of particular interest to me are the 399 people the publication has selected as Best New Chefs since the accolade's debut in 1988. Some people may fixate on baseball stats, liner notes, or other esoterica from their area of passion; I have considered begging my bosses at F&W to allow me to create trading cards or a tasteful coffee table book with profiles of these people — like Nancy Silverton, Kwame Onwuachi, and Roy Choi — who have shaped the course of American dining. So imagine my astronomical levels of glee when I found out that the majority of them were entangled in a reply-all lovefest — and it was coming from inside the house.

I first got wind of this via a text from my friend, 2009 BNC Bryan Caswell, saying that our editor in chief, Hunter Lewis, had made a "baller move" for the alumni with an invitation to the annual Trade Program at the Food & Wine Classic in Aspen, and that it was getting an "epic" response.

What I found out the next morning at our weekly all-hands meeting is that a newly created listserv with emails for every BNC we could find had the permissions set so replies to the main address were blasted out to the entire group. Suddenly chefs from that very first class (which included Bruce Auden, Daniel Boulud, Frank Brigtsen, Gordon Hamersley, Gordon Naccarato, Hubert Keller, Rick Bayless, Robert McGrath, Thomas Keller, Johanne Killeen, and her husband, the late George Germon) were a keystroke away from their peers who'd been inducted over the next 38 years, and the delight was contagious.

The responses I saw could, in the words of 2013 BNC Jason Vincent, "fix the world." We're talking about 2013 BNC Michael Voltaggio taking a moment to acknowledge the power of being in community with generations of chefs when it sometimes feels like everyone is caught up in their daily lives and feeling isolated. And 1994 BNC Gale Gand saying yes to 2014 BNC Matthew Accarino's suggestion of getting people together to dine. And 1999 BNC James Mazzio reminiscing about his time working with 1995 BNC Charles Dale, and hoping he could bring his son — who works in the restaurant business — to Aspen one of these days.

And it inspired me to reach out to some of the chefs, like 1995 BNC Traci Des Jardins and 2004 BNC Bradford Thompson, with whom I hadn't spoken for a while, as well as send a few messages to some I'd never met, telling them that they're the people who taught me to fall in love with restaurants and cooking through the pages of the magazine over the past decades.

I'm telling you all this because if you're reading this newsletter, you care very much about the hospitality industry and quite likely are a part of it yourself. It is, as Voltaggio said, easy to get so consumed by the everyday that you end up feeling alone — but it doesn't have to be that way. Maybe take a moment to reach out to that colleague you haven't talked to for a while, or even send a cold email to a chef, sommelier, maitre d', restaurateur, or other Pro you always wanted to meet. I can't guarantee they'll respond, but if they do, it'll be because you made their day. (And it would make my whole month if you reach out at the email below and let me know what happens when you do.)

You should also come to the F&W Classic in Aspen and experience the magic of that community in person. If you haven't scored your pass to the Trade Program yet, there are still a few left. As a subscriber to F&W Pro, you can use the code fwpro for an $800 discount — now extended through April 26.

Be well,
Kat