Amanda Burden: Following “The Third Plate” Dream For New Healthy American Food
The intense smell of coffee, the noise of dishes, the buzz of people. The warmth that food creates inside a room is unique. Sitting at a small table in this coffee shop close to UNR, Bibo’s, I thought it was the perfect environment for my interview with Amanda Burden. Burden is the editor and publisher of Edible Reno-Tahoe, a local food magazine, which provides recipes, tells local food and drink stories and profiles about farmers, ranches, small business owners and their involvement with the community.
Leafing through her magazine I was struck by the fashionable and trendy style, but it was also cozy and familiar at the same time. So I was curious to discover the history of this woman so involved in the community and able to create a food magazine focused on unusual topics for as little of a city as Reno.
I am Italian, and food plays a major role in my culture. In Italy, chefs are superstars and fresh food is a daily ritual, protagonist of social gatherings and especially national pride. Now, living in Reno, where every spot is populated with fast food and buffets, I was surprised to find a popular magazine dedicated to organic and high quality food.
Edible Reno-Tahoe is a unique product, born from Burden’s efforts and passion. The magazine is able to share her purposes; it’s the portrait of her philosophy, the mirror of her values. But it is also the instrument to reconcile her work as a journalist and her commitment inside the community.
Edible Reno-Tahoe, as Burden said, has a very important mission: spread a richer, healthier food culture amongst northern Nevadans, making them aware of local resources. This interview was a portrait of Burden and the story about how she tries to grow this ambitious project. During our conversation we talked about life experiences, childhood memories, future plans and comparisons between different food cultures.
As she speaks, Amanda hits people with her big blue eyes and her sweet voice. Her eyes light up when she talks about her life, full of so many different experiences, but above all when she speaks about the passion for her work. She has many stories to tell. Her career began when she was so young and it’s full of so many different experiences. Born in Los Angeles, Amanda worked initially for community newspapers in California and later as an editor and reporter in Oregon, Washington and Nevada. She has also worked as a reporter for financial newspapers like Red Herring and Business 2.0. She said that every time, she thought for every single job: “That’s my passion!”
As she described it, these different experiences have helped her to grow as a journalist and have allowed her to reconcile her many interests. But something was missing. During these years, food was as always, a great passion, but not part of her job.
She told me that her love for food has always been in her life. Probably it was born during her childhood, inside her “special” family. Amanda, going back in time, described that great food and dinners were always a constant at her house. Her father worked as a graphic designer in the music industry, and evenings in her house were filled with artists who remained to dine with her family. Her mother, who has also published a cookbook, loved to cook for everyone and spent hours in the kitchen. The famous singer Joni Mitchell was inspired by Amanda’s mother and composed the song “Lady of the canyon.” The images of those memories are vivid in the song:
“Annie sits you down to eat, she
She always makes you welcome in
Cats and babies’ round her feet, “and more:” She may bake some brownies today
Saying, you are welcome back
She is another canyon lady.”
The big influence of her mum and her love for the food movement, brought Amanda to understand her necessity to unify her need to be a writer and an editor as well, with her food passion.
With this ambitious idea in her mind, the turning point for Amanda’s life came in 2010, when she founded Edible Reno-Tahoe magazine, fulfilling her dream to make food the main topic of her journalistic activities.
She decided to launch the magazine for a few reasons. After different job experiences in magazines and newspapers she decided that she wanted to be a writer and editor for a magazine.
Moreover, the magazine came from the necessity to give the Reno audience something new about food but especially something tangible, a magazine that people could flip through the pages with pleasure.
Because for Amanda, Print is not Dead, as she said also in a recent podcast.
“There is something about tactile sensation,” Amanda said, “ just being able to hold a printed magazine, go through the pages and enjoy the all aspects, are things that people still want.”
The main goal, for her, is to contribute to the welfare of the community, connecting people with farms and ranches and raising awareness about food and ingredients.
“I was very afraid, because people said to me that Reno is a steak, potato and casino town,” she said at the beginning of her adventure with the magazine.
This was a very challenging environment in which to establish a slow food idea; but during these years, the magazine has established itself and has achieved important results.
In fact, Edible Reno-Tahoe is highly regarded in the community. For example, the magazine organizes Edible Pedal, an annual cycling race fundraising for gardening educational programs. Moreover there is growing attention around farmers markets and educational activities about healthy food. During the 2015 Nevada Press Association Award, Edible Reno-Tahoe won 18 awards.
“It’s absolutely amazing, it was unexpected but was absolutely great.”
Amanda, through the magazine, is trying to spread inside the community the food movement and to give to the American food culture a new relevance and a new identity.
“Unlike Italy and many other countries, in America unfortunately does not exist a specific role for food, or a knowledge about the origin of ingredients, the situation is very sad,” she said.
“We don’t care about where food comes from, when you ask children where food comes from, they say ‘from the grocery store’.”
But this negative response permitted to make a more profound reflection and the possibility to explain how important the work of the magazine is. Things are changing. According to Amanda, many people have started to be interested about food issues, rediscovering the genuineness of American farms’ products.
“I’m optimistic, many people now are more conscious about food, and one of my main goal with the magazine is connecting people and food sources.”
Edible Reno-Tahoe and Amanda are struggling for a culture of healthy food, that avoids fast food “Easy, and fast, but unhealthy” as she said, but rather to bring people to behave in a more responsible way.
“People should save money, thinking that they can afford better food and better ingredients to cook at home” she said.
Amanda’s contribution through the magazine to community’s food culture is important. Food is an essential part of our life and also here in Reno, many things are changing, above all thanks to the opening of new business that offer good food with local ingredients.
“We have so many new shops and restaurant in Midtown and it’s amazing because it’s the proof that if you are a little entrepreneur and you have a project, you can realize it,” Amanda said.
This shows how food can help to increase the welfare of Reno and involve citizens. Good food makes people happy. And it is something that cannot be overlooked.
When the interview was finished, Amanda told me about a book that she considers wonderful and that fits with her philosophy. The book is The Third Plate by Dan Barber. The book diffuses a more conscious and sustainable food philosophy that avoids common expensive ingredients and that often exploits the same organic and animal sources. Instead Dan Barber advocates using different, cheaper and variegated sources.
The description was intense and showed that the book is a great inspiration for Amanda and for her mission that she wants to spread, starting from the kitchen, a more sustainable and healthy future for this country.
Her words and her determination show that continuing to fight for this, one day American culture could not be only made by chips and burgers but rather, it will be a new unique food identity that finds its beauty in the richness of its lands.
