I didn’t know how to be a mom and a restaurant critic, so I quit my job

After eight years and thousands of meals, I left my job as the restaurant critic and dining editor at Northern Virginia Magazine. It’s the regional glossy for the suburbs of Washington, D.C., and I covered fine dining from James Beard award-winning chefs to strip-mall spots without websites. It was glorious and fun — until it wasn’t.
I quit for a lot of reasons, but what pushed me out was the increasing difficulty of eating at restaurants multiple nights a week while also trying to be a parent of two children under 5 years old. I know. It’s a dream job. It’s a life of privilege to get paid to eat for a living. But it’s still work. The vast territory — 90 miles long by 70 miles wide — plus a commute of an hour each way, made me a hostage in my car. At least we’re living in the golden age of podcasts.
I wrote a goodbye essay to my readers, which listed some of my favorite meals and memories but also detailed the hardships — some universal, some particular to this job — of life as a working mom. The essay was taken down after 24 hours. It’s republished here (mostly so my mom can continue sending this to friends).

I drove home an hour in traffic from Northern Virginia Magazine’s offices in Chantilly to Old Town Alexandria to grab my 18-month-old from daycare. We parked the car at the house and walked 10 minutes to grab my 4-year-old from another daycare. We walked home, but that leg takes double the amount of time, especially with all of the Halloween decorations to point and stare at.

I get home, feed the girls snacks, and tell them I’m making tofu with peanut butter and sticky rice, with a side of fried Brussels sprouts leftover from a restaurant meal. They love tofu. They love peanut butter. They love rice. They even love Brussels sprouts.

I whiz together a sauce, lacquer the strips of tofu, slide them in the oven. My husband gets home from work. Dinner is served. My 4-year-old didn’t realize the peanut butter would be on the tofu and starts screaming. This screaming is like the wave. It’s contagious. My baby is now crying, too. My husband eats, tells me dinner is delicious.

I’m not eating. I’m watching. I have to leave to go out to dinner. This scene is repeated often. I make dinner for my family, to watch and encourage bites, only to leave and go out to dinner, to eat by myself.

That night was different. That night I knew this routine would be ending. Did I really want to give up getting paid to eat at restaurants for tantrums and tears?

Am I the only human who leaves a job to spend more time with her family and actually means it?

Maybe. After eight years as the dining editor and restaurant critic at Northern Virginia Magazine, I am stepping down.

I’m feeling all the feels, of course. I’m happy to move on and have a job with (mostly) daytime hours so I can eat dinner with my family at night. I’m sad, too. I’m nostalgic for when I first started, young and hungry, when I didn’t know Manassas from Middleburg, and now I can tell you where to find tacos (Tortilleria El Molino) in the former and vermouth (Mt. Defiance) in the latter.

My first issue here, March 2012, was a food cover story: Cheap Eats. I had no idea what I was doing, and my husband and I drove around and ate five meals in five hours. Since then, I’ve eaten thousands of meals at hundreds of restaurants from Lovettsville to Occoquan. From Marshall to Purcellville. From Warrenton to Springfield. Is it normal for a 4-and-half-year-old car to rack up 85,000 miles?

I’ve eaten brisket to the sounds of cows mooing. I’ve cried over whitefish salad and bagels. In fact, I’ve cried at a ton of meals. I cried at La Fromagerie when I took my oldest daughter, then a crying newborn, and I had no idea how I’d do this job. I cried on the side of road, on the phone with my husband, while in Fredericksburg. I was in my first trimester with my second daughter, I’d already eaten two meals, and I felt queasy, full, and just that overall horribleness that comes with blazing hormones. I had one more dinner to go, but I just couldn’t do it. Honestly, how do any working mothers do it?

I’ve also had so many amazing, delicious, fun times, too: a steak dinner (and chocolate mousse) with my toddler at Ray’s the Steaks (RIP); actually, my oldest has become a wonderful dining companion and I’d often steal her from the playground to go on inappropriately late, work dinner dates; finding the simple pleasures of Peruvian chicken with all the fixin’s at Spin Pollo; screaming (and being horribly culturally insensitive) while trying to eat live octopus at Soju Sarang; reviewing a six-course dinner with a 4-year-old at The Garden Bistro; enjoying multiple iterations of Maple Ave; remembering any meal, pre-kids, where I was with my husband, and there was calm (His favorites, in case you’re wondering, are B Side and Elephant Jumps.).

Now that I can’t pull out my corporate card for an over-the-top omakase, I’ll leave you with some useful information (and for whomever takes my job). Here are some of the places I’ll be spending my own money: handmade pasta, well-cared-for vegetables, and weird wine at La Fromagerie; tofu skin and bamboo fish at Peter Chang; crispy rice at Padaek; french fries at Streets; pristine sashimi, and other surprises, at Nasime; and all the things at Mokomandy, this year’s №1 restaurant from Northern Virginia Magazine’s 50 Best Restaurants issue, on newsstands now.

Goodbye, friends. Eat well. Don’t skip the bread and butter.