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Sara Dickerman
James Beard Award winner
- Discipline
- Other
i. Biography
Food writing that starts with appetite and consequence has to hold two lines at once: what a reader will cook, and what that cooking asks of land, labor, climate, habit, and waste. Sara Dickerman states the working rule plainly: “My goal is to always try to do the right thing, but try to do the right thing with pleasure.” The useful pressure in that sentence is pleasure. It keeps ethics from becoming instruction nobody repeats, and it keeps the recipe connected to fragrance, heat, texture, and taste.
Coming Up
Environmental training changes the frame of food writing. At University of Washington College of the Environment, Sara Dickerman built a foundation that treats food as place, season, weather, resource, and consequence, not just as ingredient or menu. That background gives her work a wider field of view: the home kitchen on one end, and the systems behind growing, harvesting, buying, cooking, and sharing on the other. Restaurant cooking gives prose a different kind of discipline. In that work, Sara Dickerman learned through repetition, timing, heat, and the small judgments that decide whether an ingredient lands correctly. Her later work as co-creator at Bon Appetit’s Food Lover’s Cleanse brought that practical kitchen logic into editorial form: useful, considered, pleasure-minded, and still alert to responsibility. Food writing, in Sara Dickerman’s current practice as food writer of Food writer, gathers kitchen experience, editorial judgment, and a sustained interest in the future of eating into one working form.
Where They Are Now
Food writing can mean criticism, recipe work, reporting, or guidance for home cooks. In Sara Dickerman’s case, it holds kitchen experience, restaurant criticism, and editorial work together around the question of how people eat and how that eating might change. The concern is not only what tastes good, but what can endure; not only what sits on the plate, but what conditions make that plate possible. Future-facing food work has to avoid scolding if it wants to be used. “It’s about the future,” Sara Dickerman says, and her phrasing keeps the subject public without stripping it of appetite. The practical argument in her work is that change has a better chance when it can be folded into ordinary cooking and repeated with pleasure intact.
Signature
A signature set can show how a writer thinks about everyday ingredients. Sara's signature dishes include Stir-Fried Bok Choy With Garlic, Chickpea and Eggplant Curry With Mint Chutney, Saffron Rice Pudding, and coconut rice waffle.
In Their Words “It’s about the future. How will we feed the public if we’re no longer able to fish, or if agriculture is more difficult, because of the changing climate?” “My goal is to always try to do the right thing, but try to do the right thing with pleasure.”
Honors
Recognition in food writing marks work that peers and institutions have found durable. Sara's honors include James Beard Award.
Profile updated July 2026
FAQ
Asked of Sara
What is Sara Dickerman's current role?
As of 2026, Sara Dickerman is a food writer.
Where did Sara Dickerman train or study?
Sara Dickerman trained at University of Washington College of the Environment.
What recognition has Sara Dickerman received?
James Beard Award.
