In this blog series intern Kate E. interviews the staff here at culture: the word on cheese to give you an inside look at a day in the life of this goofy group of cheese-lovers and their work on the magazine you’ve come to love. Have specific questions for or about our staff? Be sure to send them to staff@culturecheesemag with the subject line, “Meet the Staff”.
With this post, we are being proactive. Please meet Katie Aberbach, culture’s new editor elect. She will be joining our team in a few weeks, and we decided interrogating her was the best way to welcome her into the fold.
Like anyone hoping to join the culture family, Katie admits to a deep-seated love of cheese: “I usually go for salty, crumbly, hard cheeses, but I also have been known to snack on tiny balls of fresh mozzarella or just a little cup of ricotta! A few slices of cheese has been a before-bedtime snack for me since my childhood (just ask my dad–I think he’s the one who got that habit started!).” While browsing through her local cheese shop (Arrowine), she discovered culture and we’re thrilled that she did!
While Katie has a passion for cheese and its applications in all kinds of foods, she also surrounds herself with the written word and has since high school. From writing the odd story for the local newspaper, Katie went on to get her M.A. in Communications, Culture and Technology from Georgetown University. Even while she was strengthening her writing, editing, and technology skills, she couldn’t get away from food. One of her class projects examined TV chefs, studying how gender roles influence their personas and programming.
After she graduated, Katie wrote and edited professionally for a number of publications, including USA Weekend Magazine, washingtonpost.com, and Open Air Publications. (During her interview she noted that Open Air, which produces ebooks, has published an ebook called The Better Bacon Book. We like her even more now.)
Most recently, Katie was an editor and writer for the Washington Post Express. Although she rotated through every section of the paper, including world news, travel, fitness, arts, and dining, she (unsurprisingly) kept returning to food. For the past year and a half, she has been writing a bi-weekly column called “Eater’s Digest” and editing the weekly dining section. She got to know the D.C. food world very well, but now is excited to engage with a national readership, rather than regional, and focus on cheese professionally.
Katie is now preparing to make the move to Boston, a town where she already feels at home: “Since I grew up in Connecticut, I spent a lot of time visiting Boston with my family…It will be very nice to live closer to family and friends!” Also in Boston is culture, coincidently enough. And just as she should be, Katie is just as excited to start her cheese-writing and -editing experience with us: “I am looking forward to expanding my knowledge of cheese and specialty foods as I edit articles and other content for the magazine…I love to try new foods, and the cheese world seems to offer endless chances to get introduced to something new.”
Kate Edeker
Kate is currently in the Publishing & Writing MA program at Emerson College. While in undergraduate, she spent time working in the kitchen of a Mediterranean restaurant, where she fell deeply and permanently in love with the culinary world. And if you're making a grilled cheese sandwich, she encourages goat cheese with raspberry jam on the top.
