Meet Amy Drew Thompson
The Orlando Sentinel’s new food reporter makes some promises.
“Hey, Amy Drew!” a voice, someone’s, forgive me, I can’t remember because I’ve met so many nice people this week, came from across the newsroom. I was packing up for the day, late, because I’m still learning the ins and outs of the Sentinel’s various platforms. I looked up. “Yes?”
“Thanks for that headline this morning. Great laugh.” A few others chimed in, chuckling, agreeing.
I wasn’t sure if that headline would even fly, to be honest, but I’d hoped it would. It wasn’t a purposeful litmus test. The story teed it up. I was the journo who happened upon it and swung. And I’ve done some work with the Orlando Meats crew in the past. The chances of offending them were slim-to-bupkis.
I’d been describing myself as a “feral freelancer” in the days leading up to starting this enviable gig. I was, after 15 years, “becoming an indoor cat,” but that does my business — which I built steadily after leaving a managing editor post at a Miami travel mag postpartum — a disservice. I had a job this whole time. A real job. (That’s for all you working parents out there who don’t happen to have an office, by the way. I stand with you. You have “real jobs,” no matter what anyone says.)
It took a lot to pry me out of my llama pajamas, away from kids and my dog and my clients. And after my cheeky headline cleared a multieditor gantlet and went live — and my colleagues and the readers responded positively (and with some hilarious GIFs, I might add) — I knew I made the right decision. Because they let me be me.
Me is who I promise to be.
I ask the readers to be kind — and immediately imagine the guffaws of my colleagues upon reading that — because I am still learning and will continue to do so. From the brilliant chefs and culinary artisans and restaurateurs who, lucky us, keep coming to Orlando, and from the amazing experts who cover it. I have counted them among my colleagues for several years now as the Orlando Local Expert for USA Today’s 10Best.com. Writers and
reporters. Photographers and videographers. Social media influencers. The dozens of folks who congratulated me on taking this job, who gave public props to the Sentinel for my hire.
Though my editorial experience is about as varied as one can get — book publishing, magazines (yes, I was a Playgirl editor; a favorite trivia nugget for everyone), television news. To say the subject matter has been diverse is an understatement. Senior sex. Marijuana tourism. Horror movies. Robots. Real estate (sometimes for the Sentinel’s own GrowthSpotter!). I have done gorgeous travel pieces for the L.A. Times and blog posts about shaving cream hacks.
My standard line is that I know enough to talk to virtually anyone at a cocktail party — for about 10 minutes. At which point I excuse myself to refresh my drink and leave them thinking I am extremely well informed.
Food is a natural fit for me, but it’s not all resumebased. I come from a restaurant family. My Brooklyn-born father started cooking at age 15 in a Howard Johnson’s. While knocking around Cuba in the ’50s, a chance friendship with a French chef earned him an invitation to Paris, where he learned cooking and baking and eventually returned to New York. He worked at Pierre Franey’s Le Pavillon and La Cote Basque before opening his own place — an art-house bistro he called Café Montmartre — in 1962. I came along somewhere in the middle of the 12 restaurants that followed.
My dad is still as big a fan of Nathan’s hot dogs as he is boeuf bourguignon .I am the same. And because my dad once went 11 years without any consecutive days off (restauranting is
hard), I promise to take the review part of my job quite seriously. Even if my delivery is occasionally a little blue.
And by the way, sometimes a sausage is just cased meat. I’m a food reporter. You people have dirty minds.